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The  Gospel  of  Fellowship 


THE  COLE  LECTURES 


Christianity  and  Progress . 

By  Harry  Emerson  Fosdick. 

The  Foundations  of  Faith  . 

By  John  Kelman,  D.D. 

A  New  Mind  for  the  New  Age  .  . 

By  Henry  Churchill  King,  DD.,  LL.D. 

The  Productive  Beliefs . 

By  Lynn  H.  Hough,  D.D. 

Old  Truths  and  New  Facts  . 

By  Charles  E.  Jefferson,  D.D. 

The  North  American  Idea  . 

By  James  A.  Macdonald,  LL.D. 

The  Foundation  of  Modern  Eeligion 
By  Herbert  B.  Workman,  D.D. 

Winning  the  World  for  Christ 
By  Bishop  Walter  R.  Lambuth. 

Personal  Christianity . 

By  Bishop  Francis  J.  McConnell. 

The  God  We  Trust  . . 

By  G.  A.  Johnston  Ross. 

What  Dees  Christianity  Mean? 

By  W.  H.  P.  Faunce. 

Some  Great  Leaders  in  the  World  Movement 
By  Robert  E.  Speer. 

In  the  School  of  Christ . 

By  Bishop  William  Fraser  McDowell. 

Jesus  the  Worker  ....... 

By  Charles  McTyeire  Bishop,  D.D. 

The  Fact  of  Conversion . 

By  George  Jackson,  B.A. 

God’s  Message  to  the  Human  Soul 
By  John  Watson  (Ian  Maclaren). 

Christ  and  Science . 

By  Francis  Henry  Smith. 

The  Universal  Flements  of  the  Christian 

Eeligion . 

By  Charles  Cuthbert  Hall. 

The  Eeligion  of  the  Incarnation 
By  Bishop  Eugene  Russell  Hendrix. 


1922 

1921 

1920 

1919 

1918 

1917 

1916 

1915 

1914 

1913 

1912 

1911 

1910 

1909 

1908 

1907 

1906 

1905 

1903 


CHARLES  DAVID  WILLIAMS 
i860  1923 


The  Cole  Lectures  for  1923 

delivered  before  Vanderbilt  University 


The  Gospel 
Fellowshi 


%  / 

THE  RT.  REV.  CHARLES  D.  WILLIAMS,  D.D. 

Late  Bishop  of  Michigan 

DELIVERED  BY 

THE  REV.  SAMUEL  S.  MARQUIS,  D.D. 

Formerly  Dean  of  St.  Paul’s  Cathedral,  Detroit,  Mich. 


New  York  Chicago 

Fleming  H.  Revell  Company 

London  and  Edinburgh 


Copyright,  1923,  by 
FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 


New  York:  158  Fifth  Avenue 
Chicago:  17  North  Wabash  Ave. 
London :  21  Paternoster  Square 
Edinburgh :  75  Princes  Street 


THE  COLE  LECTURES 

THE  late  Colonel  E.  W.  Cole  of  Nashville,  Ten¬ 
nessee,  donated  to  Vanderbilt  University  the  sum 
of  five  thousand  dollars,  afterwards  increased  by 
Mrs.  E.  W.  Cole  to  ten  thousand,  the  design  and  con¬ 
ditions  of  which  gift  are  stated  as  follows  : 

«  The  object  of  this  fund  is  to  establish  a  foundation 
for  a  perpetual  Lectureship  in  connection  with  the 
School  of  Religion  of  the  University,  to  be  restricted  in 
its  scope  to  a  defense  and  advocacy  of  the  Christian  re¬ 
ligion.  The  lectures  shall  be  delivered  at  such  inter¬ 
vals,  from  time  to  time,  as  shall  be  deemed  best  by  the 
Board  of  Trust ;  and  the  particular  theme  and  lecturer 
will  be  determined  by  the  Theological  Faculty.  Said 
lecture  shall  always  be  reduced  to  writing  in  full,  and 
the  manuscript  of  the  same  shall  be  the  property  of 
the  University,  to  be  published  or  disposed  of  by  the 
Board  of  Trust  at  its  discretion,  the  net  proceeds  arising 
therefrom  to  be  added  to  the  foundation  fund,  or 
otherwise  used  for  the  benefit  of  the  School  of  Re¬ 
ligion.” 


PREFACE 


THE  Cole  Lectures  for  1923  have  some 
unusual  features  which  call  for  special 
mention.  Dr.  Marquis,  in  his  introduction 
to  the  volume,  has  explained  the  very  generous 
way  in  which  Bishop  Williams  consented  to  give 
his  lectures  in  1923  instead  of  1924.  The  death 
of  Bishop  Williams,  one  of  our  great  Christian 
prophets,  makes  these  last  words  of  his  deeply  im¬ 
pressive.  This  is  especially  true  as  Bishop  Will¬ 
iams  seems  not  to  have  been  unconscious  that  in 
these  lectures  he  was  making  his  final  plea  for 
those  in  behalf  of  whom  he  had  spent  his  life. 

A  prefatory  word,  however,  must  be  added 
regarding  the  extraordinary  service  which  Dr. 
Marquis  has  rendered  in  presenting  and  preparing 
for  publication  the  five  lectures  which  came  from 
Bishop  Williams’  pen.  Long  years  of  intimate 
fellowship  had  qualified  Dr.  Marquis  to  perform 
this  sacred  office  with  remarkable  insight  and  ap¬ 
preciation. 

Vanderbilt  University  and  her  friends  desire, 
also,  to  acknowledge  very  special  indebtedness  to 
Dr.  Marquis  for  consenting  to  prepare  the  lecture 

on  “The  Fellowship  Among  the  Churches,”  which 

5 


6 


PREFACE 


appears  as  the  fifth  of  the  published  series.  Dr. 
Marquis  was  not  disposed  to  have  this  lecture 
appear  in  the  series  along  with  those  of  Bishop 
Williams.  The  very  high  merit  and  the  vital 
quality  of  this  lecture,  as  well  as  its  essential 
place  in  the  series  as  planned  by  Bishop  Williams, 
led  to  the  urgent  insistence  that  it  should  appear 
as  an  integral  part  of  the  Cole  Lectures  for  1923. 
Those  intrusted  with  the  direction  of  the  Cole 
Foundation  send  this  volume  forth  with  a  sense 
of  gratitude  to  Dr.  Marquis  too  deep  for  words, 
and  with  an  earnest  conviction  that  the  message 
of  the  book  is  none  other  than  a  message  of  God 
Himself  to  our  times. 

O.  E.  Brown,  Dean, 
Vanderbilt  School  of  Religion. 

Vanderbilt  University, 

August  8th,  1923. 


INTRODUCTION 


S  an  introduction  to  this  book,  I  can  think 


of  nothing  more  fitting  than  a  brief  and 


simple  statement  of  the  circumstances  un¬ 
der  which  it  was  written. 

Bishop  Williams  had  agreed  to  deliver  the  Cole 
Lectures  in  1924.  He  had  chosen  his  theme,  laid 
out  an  extensive  course  of  reading  bearing  upon 
it,  and  had  set  to  work,  on  the  assumption  that  he 
had  two  years,  or  rather  the  leisure  hours  in  that 
period,  in  which  to  finish  his  task.  Then  unex¬ 
pectedly  came  the  request  that  he  deliver  his  lec¬ 
tures  a  year  earlier  than  the  date  agreed  upon. 
This  he  generously  consented  to  do,  and  so  short¬ 
ened,  by  a  whole  year,  his  time  for  preparation. 

But  his  time  for  work  was  to  be  still  further 
shortened  by  death.  Of  this  there  is  reason  to 
believe  that  he  was  not  altogether  unaware.  De¬ 
pressed  by  a  sense  of  mental  and  physical  exhaus¬ 
tion,  he  worked  on  during  those  last  months  with¬ 
out  rest.  He  not  only  had  upon  him  “the  care 
of  all  the  churches”  of  a  great  diocese,  but,  be¬ 
cause  of  his  boundless  sympathy,  he  was  friend 
and  pastor  to  hundreds  who  sought  his  help  and 
counsel.  Those  who  came  to  him  were  by  no 


7 


8 


INTRODUCTION 


means  restricted  to  membership  of  his  own  com¬ 
munion.  Strangers  and  foreigners  of  every 
creed,  and  of  no  creed  at  all,  were  daily  bringing 
to  him  their  problems.  Into  his  understanding 
heart  there  flowed  a  constant  stream  of  human 
want  and  perplexity,  and  out  of  it  there  flowed  a 
healing  stream  of  help  and  encouragement.  In 
addition  to  this,  he  was  a  prophet  with  a  message 
which  an  eager  public  was  always  demanding  an 
opportunity  to  hear. 

And  so  he  worked  on  feverishly,  incessantly, 
the  meantime  writing,  as  he  could  find  the  op¬ 
portunity,  in  a  race  against  death. 

The  end  came  before  the  Bishop  had  finished 
his  task.  After  his  death,  the  first  four  lectures 
contained  in  this  volume  were  found  among  his 
papers, — evidently  the  first  draft  of  them  labori¬ 
ously  written  out  by  his  own  hand.  He  had  had 
no  time  for  their  revision  or  preparation  either 
for  delivery  or  publication.  This  fell  into  the 
hands  of  others  keenly  conscious  of  the  fact  that 
their  willingness  to  serve  is  far  greater  than  their 
ability. 

These  first  four  lectures  are  in  his  spoken 
style — a  style,  as  all  know  who  have  heard  him, 
often  marked  by  a  torrential  flow,  a  tumultuous 
sweep  of  language ;  thundering  with  denunciation 
of  social  wrongs;  flashing  with  stinging  rebukes 
directed  at  those  guilty  of  social  injustice;  burn¬ 
ing  with  a  withering  scorn  of  those  who,  behind 


INTRODUCTION 


9 


a  show  of  personal  piety,  attempt  to  hide  their 
contempt  of  the  laws  of  social  righteousness. 
One  sees  in  him  here  the  spirit,  the  courage  and 
the  righteous  indignation  of  the  ancient  Hebrew 
Prophet.  His  sympathies  were  with  the  poor 
and  oppressed  whose  cause  he  never  ceased  fear¬ 
lessly  to  plead  in  the  presence  of  the  rich  and 
mighty.  It  is  possible  that  here  and  there  he 
makes  use  of  the  prophetic  license  in  the  em¬ 
phasis  he  places  on  bad  social  and  industrial  con¬ 
ditions  and  in  the  rebukes  he  aims  at  offending 
social  and  industrial  leaders.  But  it  has  never 
been  the  function  of  the  prophet  to  speak  smooth 
things. 

The  first  four  lectures  are  printed  as  he  wrote 
them.  The  last  lecture  was  compiled  from  ma¬ 
terial  which  he  had  previously  written  upon  the 
subject.  On  the  fifth  lecture,  “Fellowship  Among 
the  Churches,”  he  had  written  only  a  page  or 
two  of  notes.  The  writer  of  that  lecture  makes 
no  claim  to  have  developed  and  presented  the 
Bishop’s  thought  on  the  subject  therein  presented. 

Samuel  S.  Marquis. 

St  Joseph’s  Rectory, 

Detroit,  Michigan, 

July  19,  1923. 


CONTENTS 


LECTURE  I 

The  Need  and  Nature  of  Fellowship  . 

LECTURE  II 

Fellowship  Between  Races  .  .  .  . 

LECTURE  III 

Fellowship  Between  the  Nations  . 

LECTURE  IV 

Fellowship  in  Industry . 

LECTURE  V 

Fellowship  Among  the  Churches  . 

LECTURE  VI 

The  Fellowship  of  the  Mystery  .  . 


.  13 

.  43 

.  80 

.  113 

.  155 

.  191 


LECTURE  I 


THE  NEED  AND  NATURE  OF 
FELLOWSHIP 

A  WORD  of  explanation,  if  not  of  apology, 
seems  required  at  the  beginning  of  these 
lectures.  It  is  due  to  the  speaker,  to  the 
hearers,  and  the  readers — if  there  shall  be  any — 
and  to  those  who  have  so  highly  honoured  me 
by  inviting  me  to  deliver  this  series.  That  ex¬ 
planation  touches  the  lecturer,  the  nature  of  the 
lectures  and  the  circumstances  under  which  they 
have  had  to  be  written. 

First  as  to  the  lecturer.  He  is  no  scholar 
either  by  temperament  or  equipment.  Indeed, 
he  can  hardly  be  called  a  student.  The  nature 
and  conditions  of  his  calling  forbid  any  aspira¬ 
tions  in  this  direction.  One  looks  with  awe  at 
the  combination  of  erudition  and  administrative 
ability  which  so  often  characterises  the  English 
Episcopate.  Certainly  such  a  combination  would 
be  nothing  short  of  a  miracle  in  the  American 
Episcopate  with  the  practical  American  tempera¬ 
ment  set  in  the  midst  of  the  drive  and  rush  of 
American  life  and  the  variegated  and  multitudi- 

13 


14 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


nous  demands  which  beset  a  bishop  on  every  side. 

Consequently  these  lectures  are  not  the  fruit 
of  long  and  painstaking  research  and  investiga¬ 
tion.  They  have  not  been  wrought  out  of  a 
scholar’s  labours  but  rather  born  out  of  an  ordi¬ 
nary  observer’s  convictions  and  intuitions.  This 
fact  should  disarm  beforehand  a  good  deal  of 
criticism. 

And  lastly  these  lectures  are  a  premature 
birth.  They  were  due  in  the  spring  of  1924. 
The  lecturer  was  leisurely  laying  out  quite  an 
extensive  course  of  reading  on  the  subjects 
chosen,  reading  for  which  two  summer  vacations 
promised  some  opportunity,  when  last  November 
an  S  O  S  call  flashed  over  the  wires.  The  lec¬ 
turer  who  had  been  appointed  for  this  year  saw 
before  him  a  crowded  calendar  (probably  no 
more  crowded  than  my  own)  and  prudently  with¬ 
drew  his  promise  to  deliver  the  lectures.  Where¬ 
upon  I  was  implored  to  step  into  the  breach. 
Having  less  of  a  reputation  to  be  sacrificed,  and 
less  wisdom  and  prudence  than  the  appointed 
speaker,  and  being  a  bit  more  reckless  if  not 
more  amiable,  I  consented.  Therefore  whatso¬ 
ever  defects  in  the  way  of  superficial  treatment 
and  inadequate  preparation  are  to  be  charged  to 
the  debit  side  of  my  account,  should  be  balanced 
by  an  equivalent  credit  in  the  form  of  weak  will¬ 
ingness  to  serve  in  an  emergency  and  save  an 
embarrassment. 


NATURE  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


15 


I  have  taken  as  my  theme  “The  Gospel  of 
Fellowship.”  It  has  been  suggested  by  the  find¬ 
ings  and  reports  of  the  Lambeth  Conference  of 
1920.  These  findings  and  reports  are,  so  to 
speak,  my  text.  To  them  I  shall  refer  frequently, 
and  from  them  I  shall  quote  freely. 

Let  me  say,  by  way  of  explanation,  that  the 
Lambeth  Conference  is  a  gathering  of  all  the 
bishops  of  the  Anglican  communion  throughout 
the  world,  assembling,  usually,  once  every  ten 
years  at  Lambeth  Palace,  the  London  residence 
of  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  the  Primate 
of  the  English  Church.  They  meet,  not  for 
legislation,  for  they  have  no  canonical  authority 
for  legislation  (each  branch  of  the  communion 
being  entirely  independent  and  autonomous), 
but  for  mutual  counsel  in  all  things  concerning 
the  Kingdom  of  God  on  earth. 

Sometimes  these  Right  Reverend  gentlemen 
think,  speak  and  act  as  ecclesiastics  in  all  ages 
and  all  cults  have  always  done,  and  I  suppose 
always  will  do.  They  busy  themselves  with,  and 
absorb  themselves  in,  the  technicalities  of  ec¬ 
clesiastical  machinery,  and  the  minutiae  of  or¬ 
ganisation  and  dogma — the  mint,  anise,  and 
cummin  of  conventional  religion.  And  again 
they  are  lifted  by  their  world-wide  experience 
and  their  concern  for  the  Kingdom  above  all  the 
narrow  limitations  of  professions,  ecclesiastical 
conviction,  class,  and  even  of  nations  and  races, 


l6  THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 

and  catch  glimpses  of  an  universal  vision,  as 
wide  as  humanity  and  as  deep  as  the  purposes 
of  God.  Ht  is  then  that  they  become  Christian 
world-statesmen  and  wise  physicians  of  the  soul  of 
humanity.  It  seems  to  me  that  on  occasion  they 
were  so  lifted  at  their  last  conference,  and  the 
reports  and  findings  give  evidence,  here  and 
there,  of  such  spiritual  exaltation  and  vision. 

We  met  at  the  supreme  crisis  of  modern  his¬ 
tory, — perhaps  of  human  history  up  to  the  pres¬ 
ent  time.  That  crisis  did  not  reach  its  culmina¬ 
tion  in  1914  with  the  outbreak  of  the  World 
War,  but  it  is  now  rapidly  approaching  such  a 
culmination  in  the  poisonous  aftermath  of  that 
war.  The  war  was  not  its  cause  but  the  occasion 
of  its  revelation,  as  the  rock  in  the  stream  does 
not  make  the  swift  current  but  betrays  its  mad 
force  in  leaping  waves  and  gathering  foam.  In¬ 
deed,  the  war  was  the  consequence,  not  the 
source,  of  the  many  evils  that  now  stand  re¬ 
vealed  in  its  lurid  glare.  Hidden  forces  of  hu¬ 
man  greed  for  gain,  lust  for  power,  commercial 
jealousies  between  nations,  bitter  hatreds  be¬ 
tween  races,  sometimes  purely  instinctive,  some¬ 
times  the  natural  fruit  of  arrogance  and  exploi¬ 
tation  on  the  part  of  the  strong  toward  the  weak, 
religious  and  sectarian  conceit  and  self-assertion, 
— these  hidden  forces  had  subtly  spread  the  lines 
of  incipient  cleavage  throughout  all  the  relations 
of  men,  industrial,  social,  national,  international, 


NATURE  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


17 


and  interracial, — even  throughout  organised  re¬ 
ligion,  the  one  bond  that  should  bind  all  men 
together  in  the  family  of  God, — aye,  in  the  very 
body  of  Christ  Himself.  The  final  explosion, 
like  a  terrific  blow,  simply  accomplished  the  frac¬ 
tures  already  prepared. 

We  live,  to-day,  in  a  world  all  but  wrecked. 
To  many  competent  and  well  balanced  observers 
the  very  foundations  of  its  order  seem  to  be 
crumbling.  Civilisation  itself  is  imperilled.  All 
the  structures  which  men  have  builded  so  pa¬ 
tiently  throughout  the  ages  of  history,  the  famil¬ 
iar  “systems”  in  which  they  have  dwelt  so  se¬ 
curely,  are  trembling,  if  not  tottering.  The  fer¬ 
vid  language  of  apocalyptic  utterance  naturally 
and  fittingly  describes  the  situation:  “Nations 
in  distress,  the  sea  and  the  waves  roaring,  men’s 
hearts  failing  them  for  fear  and  for  looking  for 
the  things  that  are  coming  upon  the  earth.”  It 
is  no  strange  thing  that  an  epidemic  of  Second 
Adventism  and  Premillenarianism  has  spread 
over  the  Christian  world,  particularly  in  Amer¬ 
ica;  that  fanatics  and  fundamentalists  have 
abandoned  the  central  purpose  and  aim  of  the 
Christianity  of  Christ — to  save  the  world  and 
set  up  a  Kingdom  of  Heaven  upon  earth — have 
dropped  the  weapons  of  their  warfare  and  the 
tools  of  service  and  are  waiting  passively  for  the 
great  cataclysm  that  shall  end  the  present  dispen¬ 
sation  and  burn  up  the  world,  hailing  with  glee 


i8 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


each  sign  of  the  approaching  dissolution — an  at¬ 
titude  which  seems  to  me  the  negation  and  stulti¬ 
fication  of  all  real  and  vital  religion. 

In  such  a  situation  the  Lambeth  Conference 
met.  The  members  thereof  proceeded  first,  as 
wise  physicians  of  the  soul,  to  make  a  diagnosis 
of  the  case.  That  diagnosis,  while  patent  and 
obvious  to  the  spiritual  insight,  seems  to  me  cor¬ 
rect  and  to  go  far  deeper  than  the  diagnosis  of¬ 
fered  by  statesmen,  politicians,  diplomats,  busi¬ 
ness  and  industrial  experts,  or  even  the  average 
social  reformer.  They  declared  that  we  are  liv¬ 
ing  in  a  world  of  broken  relationships.  Every¬ 
where  the  human  order  is  dislocated.  Races,  va¬ 
rieties  in  the  one  family  of  humanity,  for  cen¬ 
turies  and  ages  isolated  each  from  the  other, 
have  been  brought  more  or  less  suddenly  to¬ 
gether  by  the  spread  of  exploration,  the  invasion 
of  the  wEite  race  into  the  habitations  of  the 
darker  races,  by  the  quickening  of  transportation 
and  communication  and  by  the  enormous  ex¬ 
pansion  of  world  commerce.  But  juxtaposition 
has  not  made  for  harmony,  but  quite  the  opposite. 
Like  two  cats  tied  together  by  the  tails  and  flung 
over  a  clothesline,  the  nearer  they  get  together  the 
worse  for  both.  Instinctive  race  antipathies,  re¬ 
ligious  antagonisms,  and,  above  all,  the  jeal¬ 
ousies  of  race-pride  wounded  to  the  quick  by  the 
commercial  exploitation  of  the  weak  by  the  strong 
— all  these  mutual  repulsions  have  been  developed 


NATURE  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


19 


and  deepened  until,  to-day,  we  are  threatened  by 
a  worldwide  interracial  conflict  beside  which  our 
international  strifes  may  seem  petty  and  incon¬ 
siderable. 

Nations,  which  ought  to  be  members  one  of  an¬ 
other,  often  bound  together  by  innumerable  ties, 
racial,  cultural  and  religious,  have  developed  an 
exaggerated  individualism.  Often  they  are  arti¬ 
ficial  creations,  groups  of  peoples  naturally  dis¬ 
severed  in  language,  culture,  blood  and  religion, 
but  insecurely  hammered  and  welded  together 
into  an  unreal  unity,  a  manufactured  entity.  But 
nevertheless  one  and  all  have  been  characterised 
by  narrow  and  fanatical  patriotisms  and  nation¬ 
alisms.  These  patriotisms  and  nationalisms,  in¬ 
flamed  by  the  rivalry  of  international  commercial 
greeds  and  manipulated  by  cunning  masters  of 
finance  and  greedy  monopolists  of  trade,  with 
their  subservient  slaves,  the  diplomatists,  have 
been  the  fruitful  sources  of  most  modern  wars, 
particularly  the  last  one.  In  the  philosophy  of 
this  narrow  nationalism  and  fanatical  patriotism 
the  state  exists  solely  for  itself;  it  has  no  pur¬ 
pose  or  obligation  outside  itself.  It  is  conse¬ 
quently  supermoral,  above  all  laws  of  God  or 
man.  It  can  do  no  wrong.  It  is  an  end  in  itself, 
whose  sole  mission  is  self-realisation,  self-fulfil¬ 
ment,  self-aggrandisement.  And  so  the  super¬ 
state,  like  the  super-man,  runs  amok  to  its  goal 
of  world  domination,  trampling  the  rights  and 


20 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


the  lives  of  all  weaker  peoples  in  the  ruin  of 
conquest  by  brute  force.  This  is  individualism 
run  mad. 

'Is  it  not  time  when,  in  the  language  of  Lam¬ 
beth,  we  must  proclaim  “it  is  our  Christian  duty 
to  recognise  that  already  all  the  nations,  advanced 
or  backward,  child  races  or  ancient  civilisations, 
are  each  of  them,  children  in  the  great  family  of 
God?  Statesmen,  thinking  for  their  nations,  no 
less  than  for  individuals,  must  lay  hold  of  the 
truth  that  we  are  ‘members  one  of  another’  and 
that  no  national  policy  can  be  Christian  which 
ignores  the  needs  and  rights  of  other  nations. 
Neither  markets  nor  territory  nor  cheap  labour 
must,  in  the  future,  dictate  national  policy,  but 
only  the  principles  of  justice  and  the  rights  of 
all.  If  we  really  want  peace  we  must  set  our 
faces  decisively  against  the  vested  interests  which, 
in  the  past,  have  so  often  stood  behind  govern¬ 
ments  and  vitiated  their  action.” 

We  turn  to  the  realm  of  industry,  and  every¬ 
where  all  over  the  world,  in  every  land,  the  same 
ominous  condition  is  evident.  The  whole  system 
is  in  unstable  equilibrium.  It  is  rocking  on  its 
foundations.  In  a  time  when  beyond  all  others 
the  world  is  needing  production  to  clothe  its  in¬ 
numerable  naked  and  feed  its  hosts  of  starving, 
industry  is  simply  not  producing.  It  exhibits 
only  a  very  small  percentage  of  efficiency.  The 
machine  does  not  work  and,  here  and  there,  shows 


NATURE  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


21 


signs  of  breaking  down  utterly.  Who  can  cal¬ 
culate  the  waste  of  strikes  and  lockouts?  They 
threaten  sometimes  our  very  existence.  “We  are 
confronted  to-day,”  as  the  bishops  say,  “with  a 
world-wide  upheaval  and  embittered  antagonism 
in  social  relations,  the  course  of  which  no  one 
can  foresee.  We  seem  to  be  involved  in  an 
internecine  conflict  between  capital  and  labour 
in  which  each  aims  for  an  exclusive  supremacy.” 
Again  we  are  driven  back  to  the  same  diagnosis, 
broken  relationships,  a  dislocated  order. 

The  divine  and  rational  order  in  industry  is 
plain.  It  is  a  co-operation  of  all  for  the  ser¬ 
vice  of  all,  whereas  now  we  have  competition  of 
each  for  private  advantage.  It  is  again  indi¬ 
vidualism  run  mad,  and  individualism  is  but  a 
slightly  longer  way  of  spelling  selfishness.  Self¬ 
ishness  or  self  interest  (piously  hoped  to  become 
enlightened)  is  the  only  motive  which  our  ortho¬ 
dox  economics  has  hitherto  recognised  as  the 
sufficient  motive  power  of  all  industry  on  either 
side.  Capital  will  work  for  profits  and  dividends 
only,  the  largest  without  limit  that  it  can  gain,  by 
fair  means  or  foul.  Labour  will  toil  for  wages 
only,  the  biggest  that  can  be  extorted  by  the  law 
of  supply  and  demand.  Service  is  to  both  pro¬ 
ducing  factors  the  by-product  of  the  process. 
The  rule  is  generally  the  least  service  for  the 
largest  return,  “all  the  traffic  will  bear.”  And 
the  result  is  the  present  universal  warfare  with 


22 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


its  inevitable  waste  and  inefficiency,  its  peril  to 
the  public,  its  wreck  and  ruin. 

We  turn  to  the  Church.  In  Zion  we  should 
find  peace  and  source  of  peace  in  all  the  other  re¬ 
lations  of  life.  And  yet  the  Christian  Church, 
to-day,  has  ignominiously  failed  in  this,  her  essen¬ 
tial  mission  as  a  peacemaker.  She  failed  utterly 
to  sustain  in  the  slightest  degree  world  peace 
when  the  great  war  came  on,  and  she  failed  be¬ 
cause  of  her  “unhappy  divisions.”  She  had  no 
united  voice  to  proclaim  the  fundamental  prin¬ 
ciples  of  her  Lord.  In  every  nation  the  Estab¬ 
lished  or  National  Church  was  attached  like  a 
barnacle  to  the  ship  of  state,  and  the  Free 
Churches  were  swept  along  resistlessly  in  the 
wake  of  that  ship.  Most  of  us,  clergy  and  laity 
alike,  lied  vociferously,  and,  it  may  be,  sincerely, 
at  the  behest  of  the  military  and  political  yell- 
leaders  in  the  universal  propaganda  of  interna¬ 
tional  and  interracial  hate,  deemed  necessarv  to 
keep  the  fires  of  war  burning,  and  the  fighting 
spirit  up  to  the  highest  pressure  in  the  steam 
gauge.  And  now  the  challenge  comes  to  us,  sin¬ 
gularly  enough  from  a  warrior — General  Tasker 
Bliss:  “If  another  war  comes”  (and  another 
world  war  with  the  present  intensification  and 
multiplication  by  science  of  the  instruments  of 
destruction  will  depopulate  whole  areas  almost 
instantaneously) — “if  another  war  comes,”  he 
says,  “the  responsibility  for  every  drop  of  blood 


NATURE  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


23 


shed  and  every  dollar  of  wealth  wasted  will  be 
upon  the  Christian  people — aye,  the  Christian 
ministry  in  every  land.  They  can  stop  war  if 
they  will.”  Perhaps  it  is  an  unjust,  an  exag¬ 
gerated  challenge,  but,  coming  whence  it  does, 
it  ought  to  induce  deep  searchings  of  heart  in  the 
Christian  Church. 

The  Church  has  equally  failed  to  affect  in  any 
appreciable  degree  the  universal  and  fatal  strife 
in  the  industrial  realm.  She  is  for  the  most  part 
an  entirely  negligible  factor  to  both  parties  in  that 
conflict.  They  never  think  of  her.  She  is  quite 
generally  wholly  out  of  touch  with  labour.  She 
does  not  know,  or  seem  to  care  to  know,  the  great 
human  aspirations  and  ideals  that  inform  and 
inspire  that  movement  fundamentally,  however 
grossly  misunderstood  and  misled  the  movement 
may  often  be.  She  has  been  too  often  the  sub¬ 
servient  tool  or  the  silent  parasite  of  the  other 
class  who,  for  the  most  part,  support  her.  If, 
now  and  then,  she  ventures  to  assert  some  obvious 
Christian  principle  and  apply  it  pertinently  to  the 
strife,  she  is  told  to  “mind  her  own  business”  and 
threatened  with  non-support. 

What  is  the  reason  for  this  manifest  failure 
of  the  Church?  I  believe  it  is  chiefly  because 
of  an  overdone  individualism  both  in  her  doctrine, 
her  message,  and  also  in  her  practical  work  and 
organisation.  We  have  confined  ourselves  almost 
exclusively  to  the  salvation  of  individual  souls, 


24 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


ethically  or  eschatologically — salvation  to  indi¬ 
vidual  morals  and  character  or  to  eternal  bliss. 
We  have  lost  Jesus’  vision  of  the  Kingdom  of 
God  on  earth,  the  social  gospel  which  He  per¬ 
sistently  preached.  And  we  are  rent  asunder 
by  our  denominationalisms,  our  insistent  empha¬ 
sis  upon  particularistic,  individualistic  interpre¬ 
tations  of  doctrine,  practices  of  discipline,  and 
peculiarities  of  cult,  polity  and  organisation. 

Religion  is  ineradicable,  for  the  human  heart 
is  incurably  religious.  And  Christianity  is  eter¬ 
nal,  for  it  fits  perfectly,  like  the  right  key,  all 
the  complicated  needs  of  human  nature. 
“Heaven  and  earth  shall  pass  away,  but  my 
words  shall  not  pass  away.” 

But  I  am  convinced  organised  Christianity,  to¬ 
day,  stands  at  a  supreme  crisis.  It  is  a  crisis  of 
life  or  death.  Unless  our  divided  churches,  di¬ 
vided  nationally  and  denominationally,  can  catch 
the  vision  of  some  supreme  cause,  the  essential 
end  and  purpose  of  the  religion  they  commonly 
confess,  a  vision  that  shall  unite  them  above  all 
their  differences,  perhaps  make  them  forget  their 
differences,  in  one  all-absorbing  passion  and  task 
• — unless  we  can  catch  such  an  unifying  vision,  the 
Church,  as  now  organised,  is  doomed.  And  that 
supreme  vision  is  that  which  was  the  light  of  all 
Jesus’  seeing,  the  theme  of  all  His  teaching,  the 
end  of  His  life  and  death — the  Kingdom  of 


NATURE  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


25 

Heaven  on  earth,  the  disciplining  of  all  the  na¬ 
tions,  and  the  saving  of  the  world. 

If  the  Church  does  not  see  that  unifying  vision, 
the  present  organisations  of  Christianity  may  go 
to  pieces  and  its  spirit  reincarnate  itself  in  other 
forms.  This,  then,  is  our  diagnosis  tested  and 
proved  in  every  sphere  and  plane  of  human  life 
and  activity.  The  disease  from  which  humanity 
is  suffering  to-day,  the  disorder  which  threatens 
the  very  existence  of  civilisation,  perhaps  of  the 
world  order  itself,  arises  from  broken  relation¬ 
ships,  the  dislocation  of  right  order. 

What  is  the  remedy?  Our  Right  Reverend 
Fathers  sum  it  up  in  one  word — Fellowship. 

What  is  fellowship?  Before  we  try  to  define 
the  term  let  us  take  a  brief  retrospect,  a  bird’s- 
eye  view  of  the  story  of  human  development. 
Such  a  study  may  prove  the  best  introduction  to 
our  theme. 

As  I  read  history,  I  see  three  distinct  eras  in 
the  development  of  human  society.  We  have 
passed  through  two  of  these  eras.  We  are  on  the 
verge  of  the  third,  or  else  on  the  verge  of  a  col¬ 
lapse  of  civilisation  and  a  reversion  to  earlier 
types  of  society. 

These  three  eras  might  be  called  the  era  of  the 
mass-development,  the  era  of  the  development  of 
the  individual,  and  the  era  of  the  development  of 
fellowship.  If  we  were  mediaeval  mystics  we 


26 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


should  call  these  three  eras  the  dispensation  of  the 
Father,  the  dispensation  of  the  Son,  and  the  dis¬ 
pensation  of  the  Spirit. 

If  we  read  the  story  of  human  development, 
or  if  we  take  a  cross-section  of  the  various  peo¬ 
ples  of  to-day,  we  find  that  the  primitive  tribe  is 
always  characterised  by  a  mass  consciousness.  fIt 
inspires  all  their  customs,  traditions  and  methods 
of  action.  Even  such  matters  as  responsibility, 
guilt  and  punishment,  to  us  moderns  so  utterly 
individual  and  personal,  in  the  primitive  tribe  be¬ 
longed  to  the  mass.  If  one  member  of  a  fam¬ 
ily,  or  tribe,  suffers  a  wrong  or  injury,  the  wrong 
or  injury  is  reckoned  as  done  to  the  whole  group, 
and,  as  among  the  early  Hebrews,  the  next-of-kin 
is  appointed  as  blood  avenger  to  exact  the  due 
penalty  or  reparation  on  behalf  of  the  whole  group, 
and  the  whole  group  to  which  the  offender  be¬ 
longs  is  held  responsible.  Vengeance  is  inflicted 
on  or  penalty  exacted  from  all  alike,  even  chil¬ 
dren  and  babes  at  the  breast,  yea,  the  yet  unborn 
are  involved  in  common  responsibility  and  guilt. 
The  individual  has  not  yet  arrived.  Personality 
is  not  yet  realised.  As  I  have  said  before,  the 
mass-mind  or  mob-spirit  controlled  everything. 
Even  the  absolute  autocrat  which  such  a  system 
demanded,  was  but  the  incarnation  of  that  mass- 
mind  or  mob-spirit.  He  could  do  little,  individ¬ 
ually,  against  its  taboo  or  inhibitions.  Social 
solidarity  was  dense,  and  individual  initiative  and 


NATURE  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


27 

energy  were  suppressed.  The  personal  was 
merged  in  the  impersonal. 

The  Roman  Church,  particularly  in  the  Middle 
Ages,  with  its  denial  of  the  right  of  private  judg¬ 
ment,  its  suppression  of  the  freedom  of  con¬ 
science,  and  its  rigorous  subjection  of  all  alike  to 
the  mass-mind  and  the  tradition  of  ecclesiastical 
organisation,  is  an  illustration  of  the  survival  of 
that  primitive  stage  in  the  religious  realm;  and 
the  Holy  Roman  Empire,  which  survived  in  ideal, 
at  least,  long  after  its  reality  had  gone,  which 
existed  indeed  in  name  till  the  downfall  of  the 
Hapsburg  dynasty,  obliterating  as  it  did  all  dis¬ 
tinctions  of  nationality  and  race,  and  reducing 
the  world  of  people  to  one  homogeneous  lump  of 
humanity,  is  an  illustration  in  the  political  realm. 
In  this  development  the  social  forces  utterly  dom¬ 
inate  and,  indeed,  crush  the  individual. 

It  is  often  said  that  Jesus  Christ  first  discov¬ 
ered  the  individual.  He  picked  the  soul  of  man 
out  of  the  mass  of  humanity  and  set  him  face  to 
face  with  God,  endowed  with  a  new  sense  of  per¬ 
sonal  responsibility  and  inspired  with  a  new  power 
of  personal  faith  and  hope.  “The  liberty  where¬ 
with  Christ  hath  made  us  free”  includes  the 
freedom  of  conscience,  the  right  to  the  untram¬ 
melled  pursuit  and  discovery  of  the  truth,  the 
chance  for  self-expression  and  self-realisation. 
All  that  is  doubtless  true.  And  what  Christ  and 
His  religion  have  won  for  the  individual,  the  al- 


28 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


most  unlimited  enhancement  of  personal  values 
and  enlargement  of  individual  liberties,  these 
cannot  be  estimated  too  highly  or  guarded  too 
sacredly.  But  there  is  another  side  to  Christ's 
teaching  and  religion,  and  that  its  chief  aspect, 
which  we  have  almost  utterly  ignored  in  modern 
times.  It  is  His  conception  of  a  Kingdom  of 
God,  or  Kingdom  of  Heaven  on  earth,  a  higher 
synthesis  which  preserves  all  these  personal 
values  and  individual  liberties  and  yet  fuses  them 
in  a  supreme  social  vision.  But  of  that  we  shall 
speak  later.  The  modern  mind,  especially  since 
the  Renaissance  and  the  Reformation,  has  seized 
avidly  upon  this  doctrine  of  individualism.  Upon 
that  philosophy  it  has  laid  almost  its  whole  stress. 
In  its  revolt  against  the  tyranny  and  absorption 
of  the  mass  it  has  exalted  the  individual  into  soli¬ 
tary  pre-eminence.  In  its  one-sided  emphasis 
upon  personal  values,  and  individual  rights  and 
liberties,  it  has  largely  lost  all  consciousness  of 
social  responsibilities  and  values. 

Let  me  illustrate :  In  the  realm  of  religion  the 
right  of  private  judgment  and  the  freedom  of  the 
individual  conscience  have  been  firmly  established. 
They  are  inestimable  gains  which  must  be  guarded 
and  preserved  at  all  costs.  But,  without  the  social 
sense,  without  the  spirit  of  tolerance  with  its 
agreement  to  differ  on  the  indifferent  and  to  co¬ 
operate  in  the  essentials,  that  is,  without  the  spirit 
of  fellowship,  Protestantism  is  rapidly  disinte- 


NATURE  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


29 


grating  organised  religion  itself.  Any  one  who 
starts  a  new  sect,  makes  another  division  or  rent 
in  the  body  of  Christ,  on  questions  of  doctrine  or 
discipline  however  minute  and  even  ridiculous, 
prelapsarianism  or  subterlapsarianism,  the  use  of 
hooks  and  eyes  or  of  buttons  on  clothing,  wash¬ 
ing  two  feet  or  one  foot  in  the  rite  of  foot¬ 
washing — any  one  who  makes  a  new  sect  is  not 
only  free  to  do  so,  but  is  commended  and  glori¬ 
fied.  The  story  is  told  of  a  Scotsman  who 
kept  adding  to  his  creed  and  diminishing  thereby 
his  following,  till  some  one  asked  him,  “How 
many  are  in  your  church  now,  Donald  ?”  He 
answered,  “They’s  naebody  but  mesel’  and  me 
brother,  Sandy.”  “Well,”  was  the  rejoinder,  “I 
suppose  you  are  now  absolutely  sure  of  the  pure 
orthodoxy  of  your  church.”  “Weel,”  was  the 
response,  “I’m  nae  sae  sure  o’  Sandy.” 

And  with  its  loss  of  the  social  sense  in  practice, 
Protestantism,  until  lately,  had  lost  almost  en¬ 
tirely  the  social  gospel  of  the  New  Testament. 
Its  gospel  became  exclusively  individualistic. 
Its  one  aim  was  to  “save  souls”  either  ethically 
or  eschatologically.  When  the  individual  soul 
was  assured  of  escape  from  hell  fire  and  admission 
to  eternal  bliss,  or  when  the  individual  character 
was  freed  from  the  sins  that  wreck  lives  and  built 
up  into  purely  personal  virtues  of  private  conduct 
and  behaviour,  the  job  of  religion  was  completely 
done.  Protestantism  had  lost  completely  that 


30 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


commanding  vision  of  all  Christ’s  seeing,  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven  on  earth,  the  celestial  civil¬ 
isation  set  up  in  this  present  world. 

This  same  individualistic  philosophy,  which 
was  the  characteristic  outbirth  of  the  Renaissance 
or  the  Reformation,  also  affected  the  whole 
realm  of  political  organisation  and  relations.  The 
old  conception  of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire,  though 
it  survived  largely  as  a  shadow  and  a  dream  only, 
still  had  a  sense  of  the  solidarity  of  all  mankind. 
It  held  under  its  common  sway  peoples  of  every 
race,  culture,  language  and  religion. 

But  under  the  new  philosophy  of  individualism, 
that  solidarity  has  been  more  and  more  broken  up 
into  fragments  called  nations.  That  philosophy 
fostered  the  intense,  narrow,  fanatical  spirit  of 
nationalism  so  characteristic  of  modern  times. 
The  state,  often  an  artificial  creation,  composed 
sometimes  of  elements  diverse  in  language,  blood, 
religion  and  culture,  loosely  hammered  together 
under  one  administration — the  state  thus  made 
became  an  absolutely  isolated  unit,  an  insoluble 
element  in  the  common  mass  of  humanity,  as  I 
have  already  said,  “an  end  in  itself,  supermoral, 
above  the  laws  of  God  and  man,  without  any  ex¬ 
ternal  obligations  or  responsibilities  to  other  na¬ 
tions,  seeking  supremely  its  own  ends  of  com¬ 
mercial  and  territorial  aggrandisement.”  This 
kind  of  nationalism  is  the  most  fruitful  source 
and  inevitable  cause  of  war.  Whether  we  can 


NATURE  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


SI 


meet  that  peril  by  substituting  for  or  supplement¬ 
ing  this  narrow  nationalism  with  a  new  fellow¬ 
ship  of  the  nations — each  not  giving  up  but  each 
contributing  to  the  common  weal  its  own  particu¬ 
lar  gifts  of  national  culture  and  ideals — this  is  the 
supreme  question  and  the  crucial  problem  in  the 
realm  of  international  relations  to-day. 

And,  lastly,  the  effects  of  that  individualistic 
philosophy  are  most  visible  and  have  been  most 
potent  in  the  realm  of  industry. 

Mediaeval  industry,  under  the  influence  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church,  had  some  social  vision. 
The  trade-guild,  while  undoubtedly  often  ruth¬ 
less  and  over-reaching  in  its  relations  to  other 
guilds,  still  made  some  provision  for  the  mutual 
relations  and  individual  rights  of  all  concerned 
in  that  trade.  It  protected  the  consuming  public 
by  the  fixed  fair  price,  by  its  severe  penalties 
against  “the  utterance  of  false  goods,”  by  its 
legally  established  standards  of  quality.  It  pro¬ 
tected  the  merchants  or  manufacturers  against  un¬ 
fair  competition  among  themselves,  by  prevent¬ 
ing  the  “cornering  of  the  market”  by  any  indi¬ 
vidual  or  group,  the  monopolising  of  natural  re¬ 
sources  or  raw  materials  or  even  finished  prod¬ 
ucts.  It  required  that  each  merchant  should 
share  with  all  others  any  favourable  opportunity 
or  bargain  that  came  to  his  knowledge.  It  fixed 
by  law  the  fair  wage  both  for  journeymen  and  ap¬ 
prentices. 


32 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


But  with  Protestantism  came  untrammelled  in¬ 
dividualism.  With  Calvinism  came  modern  capi¬ 
talism.  Its  slogan  was  freedom  and  liberty, — 
freedom  for  the  individual,  liberty  for  self-realisa¬ 
tion  and  self-fulfilment.  All  regulations  melted 
away.  Fixed  prices,  fixed  standards  of  quality, 
fixed  profits,  fixed  wages, — everything  fixed,  all 
restraints  and  regulations  were  swept  away,  and 
the  field  left  wide  open  to  the  strongest  com¬ 
petitor.  The  science  of  modern  orthodox  eco¬ 
nomics  was  born,  which  maintains  practically  that 
you  cannot  regulate  or  control  anything  in  indus¬ 
try.  The  whole  realm  is  under  the  inexorable 
and  unalterable  law  of  supply  and  demand. 
Every  phenomenon  in  industry  is  as  much  fixed 
and  fated  by  that  law,  as  every  phenomenon  in 
physics  is  by  the  law  of  gravitation,  or  every 
phenomenon  in  chemistry  by  the  law  of  chemical 
affinity.  Social  obligations,  moral  and  ethical 
principles — above  all,  religion — have  no  more 
place,  function,  or  power  in  industry  than  they 
have  in  physics  or  chemistry. 

The  one  motive  that  can  drive  industry,  aye,  the 
one  motive  that  is  adequate  to  produce  what  the 
world  needs,  is  selfishness,  the  desire  for  gain, 
either  in  the  form  of  profits,  dividends,  or  wages. 
To  try  to  substitute  any  altruistic  motive,  like 
that  of  service,  is  as  futile  as  to  hitch  a  child’s 
paper  windmill  to  the  running  of  a  factory. 
It  is  hoped  piously  that  selfishness  may  become 


NATURE  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


33 


enlightened,  and  that  out  of  the  clash  of  these 
enlightened  competitive  greeds  some  rude  form  of 
justice  and  tolerable  system  for  human  living 
may  be  hammered.  But,  meanwhile,  the  doc¬ 
trine  of  the  Manchester  School  rules,  laissez-faire, 
hands  off,  “don’t  throw  a  monkey-wrench  into 
the  machinery — no  sentiment,  especially  no  re¬ 
ligion,  in  business.” 

The  law  of  supply  and  demand  fixes  prices  at 
“all  the  traffic  will  bear.”  The  iron  law  of  wages 
fixes  wages  at  the  lowest  level  at  which  the  work¬ 
ers  can  be  induced  to  live,  reproduce  and  produce. 
Unrestricted  competition,  except  as  it  is  restricted 
by  artificial  combinations  for  the  enhancement 
either  of  profits  or  wages,  is  the  rule.  “Every 
man  for  himself  and  the  devil  take  the  hind¬ 
most.”  Service  is  the  by-product,  profits  the  end; 
just  enough  service  to  secure  the  largest  possible 
returns.  The  result  is  a  free-for-all  fight  in 
which  the  battlefield  is  strewn  with  victims.  The 
few  among  the  employers  and  capitalists  succeed, 

• — but  succeed  enormously  in  the  congestion  of 
wealth  and  the  monopolisation  of  power — the 
many  go*  down  in  failure, — I  believe  about  ninety 
per  cent.  Labour  struggles  on  the  crumbling 
edge  of  existence,  often  in  intolerable  living  con¬ 
ditions.  The  public  is  daily  imperilled  in  the 
strife.  The  waste  occasioned  by  strikes,  lock¬ 
outs,  and  sabotage,  both  on  the  part  of  employers 
and  labourers,  is  incalculable.  Production  is  in- 


34 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


sufficient  for  the  world’s  demands  and  necessities, 
and  the  whole  system  of  industry,  aye,  civilisation 
and  the  world  order,  are  in  danger  of  a  complete 
break-down. 

Thus,  in  every  realm  of  human  relations,  we 
are  suffering  to-day  from  an  overdone  individ¬ 
ualism.  What  is  the  remedy?  \I  am  convinced 
that  it  is  not  a  return  to  the  old  “mass-formation” 
— though  many  eyes  are  looking  longingly  that 
way, — particularly  in  industry  toward  the 
mediaeval  guild  system — but  the  hope  is  in  an 
advance  all  along  the  line  towards  the  new  era  of 
fellowship. 

What  is  fellowship?  Let  us  make  a  brief 
study  of  the  contents  of  the  word.  It  is  essen¬ 
tially  a  religious  or  spiritual  term.  There  is  a 
great,  rich  Greek  word,  which,  with  its  deriva¬ 
tives,  fairly  dominates  the  literature  of  the  New 
Testament, — particularly  in  the  book  of  the  Acts 
and  in  the  Epistles, — and  which  seems  to  me  to 
express  more  fully  than  our  rather  limited  and 
shallow  English  word  “fellowship”  the  thing  we 
are  after,  and  which  we  supremely  need  to  heal 
the  breaches  of  our  broken  world.  That  word 
is  Koinonia.  We  translate  it  sometimes  “fel¬ 
lowship”  and  sometimes  “communion,” — as,  for 
instance,  in  the  phrases,  “the  fellowship  of  the 
Holy  Ghost,”  or  “communion  of  the  Holy 
Spirit.”  And  those  phrases  probably  mean  pri¬ 
marily  the  fellowship  or  communion  between  men 


NATURE  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


35 


inspired  by  the  Spirit,  rather  than  “immediately 
fellowship  or  communion  with  God  in  the  Spirit,” 
though  they  involve  both.  There  can  be  no  last¬ 
ing  or  stable  “communion  or  fellowship”  between 
men  in  any  sphere  of  their  relationships  which  is 
not  on  the  spiritual  plane  and  inspired  by  the 
Spirit.  Material  interests  are  always  divi¬ 
sive.  Spiritual  interests  only  unite,  and  there 
are  commanding  spiritual  interests  and  ends  in 
every  sphere  of  human  life  and  activity,  how¬ 
ever  superficially  materialistic  that  sphere  may 
apparently  be.  It  is  only  as  these  spiritual  inter¬ 
ests  and  ends  dominate  that  sphere  that  there  can 
exist  that  fellowship  or  communion  which  we  so 
imperatively  and  supremely  need  to-day. 

Fellowship  or  communion  is  to  be  set  over 
against  two  opposites  of  which  it  is  the  true  syn¬ 
thesis.  These  two  opposites  might  be  called  the 
mass  conception  and  the  individualistic  concep¬ 
tion,  which  I  have  just  been  illustrating  histori¬ 
cally.  The  mass  conception  makes  of  any  asso¬ 
ciation  of  men  a  homogeneous  lump,  as  it  were, 
of  humanity.  The  individualistic  conception 
makes  of  every  such  association  a  merely  arith¬ 
metical  aggregation  of  separate  and  isolated 
units.  Neither  term  is  truly  social. 

In  any  mass  movement  or  action  the  individuals 
composing  it  do  not  contribute  in  any  real  way 
intelligence,  conscience,  or  even  will  to  the  out¬ 
come.  They  are  either  swayed  by  that  curious 


£6  THE  gospel  of  fellowship 


psychological  phenomenon,  the  mob-spirit  or  the 
mass-mind,  or  they  are  manipulated  and  used  by 
some  one  or  more  strong  intelligences  or  wills 
through  autocratic  domination.  It  is  the  merg¬ 
ing  of  individuality  and  personality  of  each  mem¬ 
ber  in  a  common  impersonal  mass. 

The  individualistic  conception  implies,  as  I 
have  said,  an  aggregation  of  separate  personali¬ 
ties,  and  the  only  possibility  of  common  action  is 
the  enforcing  of  the  will  of  the  majority. 

But  fellowship  means  the  association  of  in¬ 
dividual  personalities,  each  contributing  his  par¬ 
ticular  measure  of  intelligence,  conscience  and 
will  to  the  common  action,  but  all,  however  dif¬ 
fering  in  convictions,  methods  and  views,  fused 
together  by  certain  common  dominating  interests 
and  ends.  The  personality  of  each  is  not  obliter¬ 
ated  by,  or  merged  in,  the  mass.  Rather,  by 
reaction  are  all  its  particular  qualities  developed 
as  the  characteristic  savours  and  fragrances  of 
every  flower  are  brought  out  by  the  dew  and  sun¬ 
shine.  But  there  comes  out  of  their  fellowship  a 
common  mind  which  is  very  different  from  the 
mob-mind.  Fellowship  is  not  a  sentimental  thing, 
a  mere  fusion  of  emotions  at  white  heat.  It  is 
rather  a  union  of  wills,  intelligences  and  con¬ 
sciences.  Even  fellowship  with  God  is  not  the 
passive  absorption  of  the  human  personality  into 
the  divine  as  the  mystic  makes  it.  It  is  a  de¬ 
liberate  union  of  our  wills  with  the  will  of  God 


NATURE  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


37/ 

in  His  divine  purpose  whereby  we  become  co¬ 
workers  and  partners  with  Him. 

Such  fellowship  among  men  is  the  soul  of 
democracy.  Without  it,  democracy  cannot  ex¬ 
ist.  Autocracy,  of  course,  is  the  opposite  of 
democracy,  and  its  denial.  But  mass-action,  in¬ 
spired  by  the  mob-mind,  is  equally  not  democracy. 
Neither  is  the  bare  rule  of  the  majority  democ¬ 
racy.  Sir  Henry  Maine  once  ridiculed  democracy 
as  the  mere  arithmetical  aggregation  of  unit 
individuals,  a  counting  of  noses,  and  if  there 
were  one  more  nose,  even  if  it  were  a  snub  nose, 
on  one  side  than  on  the  other,  that  determined 
the  issue.  Democracy  was  the  rule  of  the  one 
snub  nose. 

Professor  John  Dewey  replied  in  that  admirable 
monograph,  now  unfortunately  out  of  print,  “The 
Ethics  of  Democracy/’  in  which  he  maintained 
that  democracy  was  not  an  arithmetical  aggrega¬ 
tion  of  individuals  but  a  vital  organism  of  wills, 

A  man’s  votum  or  will  may  be  exactly  equiva¬ 
lent  to  his  ballot,  the  piece  of  paper  he  casts  into 
the  voting  booth  to  indicate  his  choice  of  candi¬ 
dates  or  policies,  or  it  may  have  a  force,  a  power, 
an  influence,  many  times  that  ballot.  Theodore 
Roosevelt’s  votum ,  or  will,  his  decision  or  choice 
in  political  matters,  probably  carried  with  it  a 
million  ballots,  while  John  Jones’  votum,  or 
vote,  was  represented  by  just  one  solitary  ballot. 
Now  mingle  all  these  minds  and  wills  together 


38  THE  gospel  of  fellowship 


in  the  atmosphere  of  a  genuine  fellowship,  with 
a  free  and  open  opportunity  for  discussion  of 
facts  and  exercise  of  influence,  and  there  will 
issue  the  common  mind  and  will  which  are  the 
real  meaning  of  democracy.  Each  individual 
mind  and  will  will  be  stimulated  and  developed 
as  well  as  modified  by,  and  adjusted  to,  every 
other  mind  and  will,  and  the  outcome  represents 
each  and  all  just  in  proportion  to  the  values  and 
forces  of  the  individual  component  members  of 
that  fellowship.  Such  a  democracy  and  fellow¬ 
ship  may  be  illustrated  by  the  familiar  parallelo¬ 
gram  of  forces  in  physics.  Here  is  force  A 
measuring  a  thousand  units  in  one  direction, 
force  B  of  five  hundred  units  in  another,  force  C 
of  five  units  in  another.  Draw  the  parallel  lines 
and  construct  your  parallelogram,  and  the  com¬ 
mon  mind  and  will  will  move  on  the  diagonal  of 
that  parallelogram. 

This  is  the  age  of  democracy,  and  democracy 
means  such  fellowship  as  I  have  tried  to  describe. 
We  need  such  a  democracy  of  fellowship  among 
the  races  that  each  may  contribute  its  peculiar 
gift  of  culture  and  character  and  power  to  the 
common  wealth  of  humanity.  We  need  such  a 
democracy  of  fellowship  among  the  nations,  for 
only  so  can  we  substitute  the  arbitrament 
of  reason  for  the  arbitrament  of  force, 
and  secure  lasting  peace  and  human  development 
through  the  “parliament  of  nations,  the  confed- 


NATURE  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


39 


eration  of  the  world.”  We  need  such  a  democ¬ 
racy  of  fellowship  in  industry  wherein  employers, 
employes  and  public  shall  be  effectively  and  pro¬ 
portionately  represented,  for  only  so  can  we  put 
co-operation  for  the  common  service  in  place  of 
the  present  mad  competition  for  private  advan¬ 
tage,  and  thus  establish  social  peace  and  well 
being.  We  need  such  a  democracy  of  fellow¬ 
ship  between  the  divided  and  often  warring  mem¬ 
bers  of  Christ’s  body,  for  only  so  can  the  Church 
proclaim  with  a  united  voice  the  gospel  of  her 
Master  and  set  up  His  Kingdom  on  earth, — 
aye,  only  so  can  organised  Christianity  continue 
to  exist. 

Everywhere  our  paramount  need  is  the  realisa¬ 
tion  of  fellowship. 

But  how  shall  it  be  achieved  ?  There  are  great 
and  far-reaching  schemes  proposed,  Leagues  of 
Nations,  the  various  varieties  of  socialism,  plans 
for  the  wholesale  democratisation  of  industry,  and 
federations  of  churches  for  common  action,  with 
farther-reaching  attempts  at  organic  unity  in 
faith  and  order.  These  all  deserve  our  study 
and  our  support,  according  as  their  merits  com¬ 
mend  themselves  to  our  judgments.  But  I  am 
convinced  that  real  fellowship  must  be  reached 
in  another  way.  It  cannot  be  imposed  mechan¬ 
ically  from  above  on  those  below,  or  from  with¬ 
out  on  those  within.  It  must  spring  up  from 
below  from  the  hearts  of  the  people.  It  must 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


4° 

grow  from  within.  It  is  a  thing  of  the  spirit 
and  not  of  external  devices.  And  to  that  end 
we  need  everywhere  the  formation  of  voluntary 
groups,  united  in  devotion  to  common  causes,  who 
shall  act  as  ganglia,  nerve-centres  of  fellowship 
in  our  sadly  divided  body  of  humanity,  centres 
of  salt  and  leaven,  which  shall  gradually  permeate 
the  whole  mass  with  their  own  spirit  of  fellow¬ 
ship. 

Such  are  the  international  associations  of  the 
men  of  science,  art  and  literature  throughout  the 
world,  for  science,  art,  and  literature  know  no 
race  or  nation.  Such  are  the  great  trade  and 
labour  unions  with  their  international  gatherings 
for  various  purposes.  Just  now  these  give  more 
promise  of  the  prevention  of  war  than  any  other 
associations.  Such  are  the  councils  of  employ¬ 
ers  and  employes  and  the  public  which  are  work¬ 
ing  out  the  spirit  of  co-operation  as  well  as  plans 
for  industrial  democracy.  Such  are  the  many  as¬ 
sociations  of  earnest  men  and  women  of  all  faiths 
and  communions  for  various  religious,  social  and 
international  purposes,  like  the  World  Alliance 
for  International  Friendship  Through  the 
Churches,  or  the  little  Church  League  for  In¬ 
dustrial  Democracy. 

The  more  of  such  groups  we  can  have,  the 
better.  They  practise  the  art  of  fellowship 
among  themselves  and  spread  it  by  contagion. 

Let  me  outline,  briefly,  the  method  of  one 


NATURE  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


41 


such  voluntary  group  of  fellowship.  It  reveals 
the  method  of  cultivating  fellowship  and  its  char¬ 
acteristic  development.  They  are  all  Christians 
and  all  interested  in  the  interpretation  of  the  es¬ 
sential  truths  of  Christianity  into  terms  that  shall 
meet  the  needs  of  to-day  and  the  understanding 
of  the  modern  mind.  They  are  of  various  voca¬ 
tions, — theologians,  teachers,  pastors,  scholars, 
scientists,  and  women  who  are  just  women. 
They  have  various  views  and  convictions,  but  a 
common  cause.  They  meet  for  a  week  of  re¬ 
treat  and  conference  to  lay  out  the  plan  for  their 
work  and  to  assign  subjects  to  individual  writers. 
After  some  months  they  meet  for  another  such 
week  to  read  over  and  criticise  the  work  so  far 
accomplished.  After  another  interval  they  meet 
for  another  such  week  for  final  revision. 

In  all  these  periods  of  mutual  counsel  they 
have  devotional  exercises  together,  intellectual 
discussion,  and  social  intercourse  and  recreation. 
The  mind  of  each  is  quickened  and  deepened  as 
well  as  modified  and  adjusted  by  contact  with 
the  minds  of  others.  There  issues  something 
quite  different  from  the  arithmetical  addition  of 
separate  minds.  It  is  a  tertium  quid ,  a  chemical 
result,  perhaps  as  different  from  any  or  all  of 
the  contributing  minds  as  water  is  from  the  oxy¬ 
gen  and  hydrogen  which  compose  it  under  the 
electric  spark. 

That  electric  spark  is  fellowship — fellowship, 


42 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


as  tHey  express  it,  “in  work  and  play,  in  prayer 
and  jest.”  If  such  groups  of  men  and  women, 
interested  in  the  great  common  problems  of  world 
politics  and  humanity,  of  industry  and  religion — 
if  such  groups  could  be  formed  to  develop  such 
fellowships  in  work  and  play,  in  jest  and  prayer, 
we  should  find  our  problems  clarifying,  our 
breaches  being  healed,  and  the  spirit  of  fellowship 
spreading  everywhere.  And  behind  and  beneath 
all  these  other  groups,  there  is  one  fundamental 
fellowship  which  is  the  final  source  and  origin  of 
all  others,  their  one  sufficient  inspiration  and 
sustenance — that  is  the  fellowship  of  religion  in 
its  most  essential  sense,  above  all  the  religion 
revealed  in  Jesus  Christ. 

I  have  in  this  lecture  suggested  my  theme.  In 
the  succeeding  lectures  I  shall  apply  that  theme 
as  follows:  Fellowship  between  Races,  Fellow¬ 
ship  between  Nations,  Fellowship  in  Industry, 
Fellowship  among  the  Churches,  and,  finally,  the 
Fellowship  of  the  Mystery,  rooted  in  the  grace 
of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  revealing  the  love  of 
God  and  realised  in  the  Communion  of  the  Holy 
Ghost. 


LECTURE  II 


FELLOWSHIP  BETWEEN  RACES 

IN  one  of  our  large  cities  there  is  a  technical 
high  school  in  which  noonday  luncheons  are 
served  at  cost  to  the  pupils.  There  appeared 
one  day  over  the  door  of  the  dining-room  this 
sign — “Sheenies  and  Niggers  wait  until  your 
Betters  feed.”  This  sign  was  put  up  by  the  so- 
called  “white”  pupils,  themselves  a  mongrel 
mixture  of  many  races. 

That  day  the  Negro  and  Jewish  pupils  formed 
an  alliance.  In  a  school  fight  they  “cleaned  up” 
the  mongrel  whites  and  established  their  claim  to 
respect,  and  equal  rights  and  privileges.  I  be¬ 
lieve  such  a  combination  between  Jews  and  Ne¬ 
groes  is  taking  place  in  New  York  politics, 
and  bids  fair  to  run  through  all  our  large 
cities. 

It  is  hard  to  think  of  two  races  more  diverse 
in  traditions,  culture,  customs,  in  fact  everything, 
than  the  Negroes  and  the  Jews.  Yet  a  common 
experience  of  contempt,  arrogance  and  tyranny 
on  the  part  of  an  alleged  “superior”  race,  is  mak¬ 
ing  them  allies.  It  is  said  that  “politics  makes 

43 


44 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


strange  bed-fellows.”  So  do  race-hatreds  and 
race-strife. 

In  that  story  is  set  forth  concretely,  in  minia¬ 
ture,  the  gravest  peril  that  besets  modern  civilisa¬ 
tion  to-day.  An  exaggerated  race-conscious¬ 
ness,  expressing  itself  in  contempt,  exploitation 
and  tyranny  on  the  one  side,  the  side  of  those 
that  claim  to  be  the  superior  races,  the  whites, 
and  deepening  resentment  and  hatred  on  the  part 
of  the  so-called  inferior  races,  the  darker  races, 
this  overdone  and  diseased  race-consciousness  is 
everywhere  undermining  the  foundations  of  mod¬ 
ern  civilisation.  Particularly  it  threatens  the 
long-established  supremacy  of  the  white  or  west¬ 
ern  civilisation. 

Fellowship  between  the  races  has  become,  to-day, 
the  article  of  a  standing  or  a  falling  world  order. 
Whether  race  characteristics  are  due  simply  to 
heredity,  to  blood,  or  whether  they  are  the  gradual 
development  and  outgrowth  of  environment,  cli¬ 
mate,  habitat,  with  their  consequent  manners  and 
modes  of  life,  custom,  culture  and  tradition,  this 
is  an  academic  question  for  anthropologists  and 
ethnologists  to  discuss,  and,  if  they  can,  to  settle. 
Certainly  such  facts  as  the  vast  difference  in  char¬ 
acteristics,  progress,  civilisation  and  culture  be¬ 
tween  the  modern  Hungarian  and  the  Turk,  said 
to  be  of  the  same  blood  and  race,  would  seem  to 
lay  the  emphasis  on  environment.  The  difference 
between  the  two  peoples  seems  to  be  owing  to 


BETWEEN  RACES 


45 


Christian  culture  and  Mohammedan  culture. 
But  as  I  have  said,  this  is  an  academic  question 
for  experts.  The  universal  fact  which  we  must 
face  practically  is  this  race-sense,  or  race-con¬ 
sciousness,  and  out  of  it  grow  those  inexplicable 
and  ineradicable  instincts,  race-pride  and  race- 
antipathy,  the  unreasoning  and  often  unreasonable 
conviction  in  each  race  of  its  own  superiority  to 
all  others,  and  the  equally  unreasoning  and  un¬ 
reasonable  prejudice  and  even  hatred  of  all  others. 
These  are  practically  universal.  They  are  in¬ 
stincts,  I  repeat.  They  have  their  roots  in  the 
psychic,  rather  than  in  the  rational.  They  can 
neither  be  reasoned  into  human  nature  nor  rea¬ 
soned  out  of  human  nature.  They  are  there, 
that  is  all  we  can  say,  and  apparently  impreg- 
nably  and  ineradicably  there. 

Perhaps  the  most  typical  illustration  of  race- 
pride,  if  not  race-conceit,  is  to  be  seen  in  our 
own  race. — the  white  race,  particularly  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  variety  of  it.  We  are  absolutely  sure 
that  we  are  the  supreme  race  of  the  world  and  of 
history.  We  stand  at  the  acme,  the  summit  of 
human  development  and  of  human  civilisation. 
Many  of  us  cannot  imagine  any  stage  of  progress 
beyond.  Our  motto  is  “ne  plus  ultra.”  To 
question  or  cast  any  doubt  upon  this  racial  su¬ 
premacy  of  ours,  is  like  questioning  or  casting 
a  doubt  upon  a  mathematical  axiom,  like  two 
and  two  make  four,  or  the  shortest  distance  be- 


46  the  gospel  of  fellowship 

tween  two  points  is  a  straight  line.  It  reduces 
us  to  a  blank  mental  confusion.  We  conclude, 
charitably,  that  the  doubter  has  simply  lost  his 
mind. 

Our  instinctive  attitude  toward  all  other  races 
is,  perhaps,  primarily  not  that  of  antipathy  but 
rather  of  patronising  arrogance  mingled  with 
kindly  contempt.  We  feel  no  hatred  against 
them,  ^Indeed,  they  are  hardly  worthy  of  our 
hatred.  We  even  graciously  condescend  toward 
them  as  we  do  toward  children,  the  weak-minded, 
the  helpless  and  the  poor,  provided  they  know 
their  place  and  keep  it.  And  that  place  is  the 
place  of  acknowledged  inferiority,  grateful  de¬ 
pendence,  and  humble  docility. 

On  what  grounds  rests  this  vaunted  superior¬ 
ity  of  the  white  race  and  civilisation?  In  one 
realm,  it  must  be  acknowledged,  we  have  estab¬ 
lished  securely  our  claim  to  superiority,  if  not  to 
supremacy,  and  that  is  the  material  realm.  We 
have  made  more  discoveries  of  the  resources  and 
forces  of  physical  nature  than  all  the  other  races. 
We  have  devised  more  inventions  whereby  those 
resources  are  converted  into  material  wealth  and 
those  forces  harnessed  to  the  service  of  our  physi¬ 
cal  life,  though  the  Chinese  may  dispute  this 
claim  in  a  few  particulars,  such  as  the  invention 
of  gunpowder,  printing  and  the  making  of  tex¬ 
tiles,  particularly  silks. 

We  have  conquered  space  and  time  by  steam 


BETWEEN  RACES 


4  7 


and  electricity.  We  have  explored  the  secrets 
of  the  universe  in  the  natural  science  of  physics, 
chemistry  and  astronomy,  though  in  the  last 
two,  particularly,  we  received  large  inheritance 
from  the  east,  and  we  excel  all  in  the  application 
of  science  to  the  diagnosis  and  healing  of  disease. 
Hitherto,  we  have  stood  supreme  in  the  infernal 
art  of  war.  We  have  devoted  the  skill  of  our 
science  to  the  invention  and  fabrication  of  the 
instruments  of  destruction  and  we  have  held  a 
frightful  supremacy  in  this  region.  We  have 
learned  how  to  use  and  organise  force  for  the 
conquest,  subjugation  and  control  of  other  races. 

On  these  grounds  we  rest  our  claim  to  supe¬ 
riority  and  supremacy  and  feel  secure.  None  can 
dispute  those  claims,  and  many  of  us  do  not  see 
beyond,  perhaps  because  we  do  not  care  to  look 
beyond,  or  because  we  have  little  sense  of  other, 
and,  perhaps,  higher  values. 

But  when  we  come  to  the  development  and  use 
of  the  human  mind  and  intellect,  and  the  expres¬ 
sion  of  the  human  spirit  in  such  forms  as  art,  lit¬ 
erature,  philosophy,  we  must  yield  the  palm  to 
ancient  Greece,  which  stands  in  these  regions  on 
a  height  seemingly  unattainable  by  us.  In 
subtlety  of  thought,  and  penetration  into  intel¬ 
lectual  and  particularly  spiritual  realities,  we  are 
far  inferior  to  the  best  East  Indian  mind  both 
ancient  and  modern. 

And  as  to  the  supreme  art  of  living,  it  is  a 


48 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


mast  debatable  question  whether  with  all  our 
multiplications  of  material  comforts  and  wealth, 
all  our  knowledge  and  mastery  of  the  physical 
universe,  we  have  increased  the  sum  of  human 
happiness  or  even  the  average  well-being  of  hu¬ 
manity.  The  ancient  Greeks  were  undoubtedly 
a  far  happier  people  than  the  mass  of  Americans 
or  Englishmen.  Sometime,  we  shall  look  back 
upon  our  modern  industrialism  with  its  ruthless 
greeds,  its  concentration  of  wealth  and  power  in 
the  hands  of  the  few  and  of  misery  in  the  lives  of 
all,  particularly  the  dispossessed,  its  sordidness 
and  cruelty,  its  atrophy  of  all  sense  of  the  higher 
values  of  life,  its  incapacity  for  clean  and  high 
joys — sometime,  I  say,  we  shall  look  back  upon 
this  vision  with  all  the  horror  with  which  we  con¬ 
template  the  horrors  of  Dante’s  Inferno  or  the 
old  orthodox  hell.  Some  of  us  look  upon  it  thus 
now.  And  as  to  religion,  with  its  sense  of  moral 
values  and  visions  of  spiritual  realities,  we  have 
been  always  notoriously  deficient,  even  poverty- 
stricken.  The  ancient,  Teutonic  religions  which 
Germany  tried  to  revive  in  the  late  war,  were  fit 
for  such  use  only.  They  were  savage,  bestial, 
cruel  beyond  words,  destitute  of  any  moral  or 
spiritual  values.  We  have  had  to  import  all  our 
moral  systems  (except  our  survival  of  mediaeval 
chivalry)  and  quite  all  our  religious  and  spiritual 
philosophies  from  the  East,  from  the  despised 
dark  races.  The  three  prevailing  religions  of  the 


BETWEEN  RACES 


49 


world,  Buddhism,  Mohammedanism  and  Judaism 
with  its  noble  daughter  Christianity,  all  came  to 
us  from  the  wise  men  of  the  East.  How  much 
in  our  arrogant  assumption  of  superiority  do  we 
realise  our  incalculable  debt  in  the  past  to  these 
so-called  inferior  races?  How  much  do  we  ap¬ 
preciate  the  inestimable  racial  gifts  and  graces 
in  which  they  excel  us  to-day?  An  Eastern  pre¬ 
late  recently  most  aptly  and  truly  compared  the 
relation  of  the  East  to  the  West,  the  white  man's 
burden  if  you  please,  to  a  sturdy  blind  man  (the 
West)  carrying  on  his  shoulders  a  lame  man  of 
keen  sight.  We  have  the  strength,  they  have  the 
vision.  We  need  each  other. 

But  in  the  rudeness  of  our  conceit,  we  have 
habitually  despised  their  gifts.  Even  our  early 
missionaries  (reimporting  into  the  East  a  re¬ 
ligion  originally  born  there  and  much  distorted 
and  petrified  by  our  Western  literature)  have 
often  contemptuously  and  indiscriminately  swept 
aside  all  the  great  spiritual  values  of  native  phi¬ 
losophies  and  religions  as  real  superstition  and 
pure  heathenism,  the  inventions  of  the  devil, 
forgetting  that  God  hath  not  left  Himself  with¬ 
out  witness  in  any  age  or  among  any  people,  that 
His  light  lighteth  every  man  that  cometh  into  the 
world. 

And  as  for  our  explorers,  travellers,  conquer¬ 
ors,  governors  and,  above  all,  our  capitalists, 
traders  and  merchants,  they  have  trampled  ruth- 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


50 

lessly  upon  things  too  precious  for  their  limited 
understanding,  namely,  sensitive  racial  pride  and 
self-respect.  They  have  ignored  or  condemned 
philosophy,  poetry,  religion,  art,  which  they  were 
too  crude  to  appreciate.  They  have  often  be¬ 
haved  like  the  proverbial  bull  in  the  china  shop. 
We  have  run  amok  through  civilisations  perhaps 
in  many  aspects  finer  than  our  own. 

Meanwhile,  what  is  the  attitude  of  these 
darker  races  towards  us?  What  is  their  esti¬ 
mate  of  us  ?  Few  of  us  stop  to  ask  that  question. 
Perhaps  many  of  us  never  think  of  it.  It  is  too 
absurd  a  question  to  ask.  Of  course,  they  must 
recognise  our  superiority.  If  they  do  not,  so 
much  the  worse  for  them.  Yet  it  is  good  for  us 
to  “see  oursel’s  as  ithers  see  us.”  The  vision  may 
surprise  us  overwhelmingly.  The  Eastern  mind — 
Indian,  Chinese,  even  Japanese — regards  us,  on 
the  part  of  the  common  people,  mostly  with  in¬ 
tense  hatred  and  contempt,  and  sometimes  among 
the  cultured  with  quiet  but  bitter  amusement. 
The  masses  of  the  Chinese  are  quite  as  convinced 
of  the  unquestioned  superiority  of  their  civilisa¬ 
tion  over  ours,  as  we  are  confident  of  the  su¬ 
periority  of  ours  over  theirs.  They  regard  us  as 
heathen,  pagan  and  barbarian,  if  not  savage,  as 
much  as  our  ignorant  people  so  regard  them. 
Their  common  name  for  us  is  “foreign  devils.” 
Our  chief  characteristic  to  their  refined  and  cul¬ 
tured  people  is  our  bad  manners.  Perhaps  a 


BETWEEN  RACES 


51 


most  insignificant  and,  indeed,  ridiculous  detail 
will  shock  our  sensibilities  and  wound  our  pride 
most.  An  educated  Chinese  gentleman  being 
urged  by  an  American  inquirer  to  declare  frankly 
what  to  him  was  most  offensive  about  a  white 
man,  after  long  importunity  said  most  reluctantly 
at  last,  “It  is  the  way  you  smell.  To  us  you 
have  the  odor  of  death,  the  smell  of  a  corpse.” 
It  may  be  just  as  well  for  us  to  remember,  when 
we  turn  up  our  noses  at  a  joke  over  the  odor  of 
the  oriental  or  the  darker  races,  that  we  may  be 
just  as  offensive  in  this  particular  to  them,  though 
they  may  be  too  polite  to  express  themselves  as 
frankly,  or  shall  we  say  as  rudely,  as  we  do. 

These  are  simply  illustrations  of  the  instinctive 
inter-racial  antipathies,  psychic  rather  than  ra¬ 
tional,  and  these  natural  antipathies  are  immea¬ 
surably  sharpened  and  intensified  by  religious  an¬ 
tagonisms,  commercial  rivalries  and  jealousies, 
and  above  all  by  the  bitter  resentment  over  the 
commercial  exploitation,  social  contempt,  and  mil¬ 
itaristic  tyranny  and  oppression  of  the  stronger 
races  toward  the  weaker. 

These  facts  constitute  the  world's  most  omi¬ 
nous  and  threatening  peril  to-day.  They  present 
the  chief,  indeed  the  paramount,  problem  which 
we  must  face  in  the  immediate  future. 

That  problem  divides  into  two: 

The  race  problem  in  the  world  and  the  race 
problem  in  America. 


52 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


It  is  almost  wholly  a  modern  problem,  this  race 
problem.  For  centuries,  and  for  ages,  the  races 
had  been  practically  isolated  and  insulated  from 
each  other. 

To  be  sure,  there  was  the  constant  shifting  to 
and  fro  of  populations  in  the  early  ages,  the  ebb 
and  flow  of  tribal  ventures  in  migration  and  con¬ 
quest.  Alexander’s  conquest  carried  Greek,  the 
then  Western  civilisation,  to  India  and  left  there 
some  monuments  and  memories.  Then  came,  in 
the  Christian  era,  the  threat  of  the  West  by  the 
East,  when  the  Moslem  invasion  engulfed  all 
Christian  North  Africa,  swept  over  Spain  and 
battered  at  the  barriers  of  France.  And,  later, 
came  the  counter  movement  of  the  Crusaders  for 
the  recovery  at  least  of  the  holy  places  of  Pales¬ 
tine,  and  then  the  Turk  swept  up  to  the  very 
gates  of  Vienna  and  threatened,  for  a  while,  to 
turn  the  West  into  the  East.  But  all  these  move¬ 
ments  left  little  permanent  impression.  The  two 
worlds,  the  East  and  the  West,  the  two  civilisa¬ 
tions,  the  Oriental  and  the  Occidental,  were  left 
practically  intact  in  their  integrities.  The  East 
was  still  the  East  and  the  West  the  West.  India 
sat  undisturbed,  absorbed  in  silent  meditation  on 
the  mysteries  of  the  universe.  China  slept  in 
placid  peace  and  self-complacency  behind  her 
great  wall.  Korea  until  yesterday  was  a  hermit 
nation.  Japan  lived  till  1853  in  a  flat  four-square 
world,  aware  only  of  the  existence  of  Korea, 


BETWEEN  RACES 


53 


China,  and  India.  And  the  vast  interior  of  Africa 
was  still  marked  unknown  or  unexplored  territory 
in  the  geographies  some  of  us  studied  in  our 
schooldays.  It  was  still  “the  dark  continent/’ 
Adventurous  travellers  like  Marco  Polo  took  per¬ 
ilous  journeys  into  the  Far  East  and  brought 
back  fabulous  tales.  Venetian  merchants  carried 
on  an  intermittent  trade  with  Araby  and  India. 
Pioneers  of  the  Cross,  Jesuit  missionaries,  pene¬ 
trated  the  “land  of  Simiens”  and  left  perma¬ 
nent  traces  on  its  history.  But  for  all  that  oc¬ 
casional  and  fleeting  contact,  East  was  still  East 
and  West  was  still  West.  Each  was  practically 
hermetically  sealed  against  the  other. 

Then  came  the  great  typical  movement  of  mod¬ 
ern  times,  the  advance  all  along  the  line  of  the 
West  upon  the  East.  It  was  chiefly  a  commercial 
invasion  with  out-runners  and  pioneers  in  the 
form  of  the  explorers  and  investigators  of  science 
and  the  missionaries  of  religion.  In  India  it  was 
frankly  and  wholly  commercial  from  the  start. 
Commercial  wars  between  French  and  English 
interests  swept  over  the  country  until  the  Eng¬ 
lish  triumphed  and  a  mercantile  company  actually 
seized  and  ruled,  for  its  own  profit,  that  vast 
peninsula.  Political  administration  and  govern¬ 
ment  came  in  later  to  remedy  the  intolerable  evils 
of  commercial  exploitation.  The  history  of  the 
British  occupation  of  India  is  a  story  of  mixed 
results.  It  exhibits  some  of  the  finest  illustrations 


54 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


of  even-handed  justice,  in  administrative,  benevo¬ 
lent  despotism,  the  noble  lifting  and  bearing  of 
the  white  man’s  burden,  mingled  with  as  ruthless 
a  commercial  oppression  and  exploitation  as  the 
world  has  ever  known. 

Poor,  passive,  phlegmatic  China  became  the  un¬ 
resisting  prey  of  Western  greed.  Her  living  mem¬ 
bers  were  lopped  off  and  appropriated,  “zones  of 
influence”  were  established  in  her  very  heart, 
where  her  sovereignty  was  ignored  and  nullified, 
her  trade  seized  and  carried  on  for  the  profit  of 
foreigners,  her  resources  milked  into  their  pail, 
even  her  non-Christian  conscience  violated  by 
“Christian”  England  in  the  war  that  forced  the 
opium  trade  upon  her.  Only  brave  little  Japan 
retained  some  measure  of  self-respect  and  self- 
sovereignty  as  she  took  over,  and  made  her  own, 
the  methods  of  the  new  Western  civilisation.  The 
slave  trade,  with  its  unspeakable  horrors,  was  the 
first  “beneficent”  touch  of  Christendom  upon 
heathen  Africa.  And  later  its  vast  unknown  in¬ 
terior,  opened  largely  by  science  and  religion,  ex¬ 
plorers  and  missionaries,  became  forthwith  the 
prey  of  commercial  greed.  British,  Dutch,  Bel¬ 
gians,  French,  Italians,  Germans,  used  its  material 
resources  and  its  human  populations  without  con¬ 
science  for  their  own  aggrandisement.  The  dia¬ 
mond  mines,  the  rubber  plantations,  the  vast  agri¬ 
cultural  domains,  all  cry  aloud  to  heaven  for  ven¬ 
geance  on  the  Christians,  on  behalf  of  the  helpless 


BETWEEN  RACES 


55 


heathen.  There  is  no  more  hideous  story  in  his¬ 
tory,  in  some  respects,  than  this  story  of  the  in¬ 
vasion  of  the  East  by  the  West,  this  primary  im^ 
pact,  we  might  almost  call  it  collision,  of  the  so- 
called  Christian  civilisations  with  the  non-Chris¬ 
tian  civilisations,  or  barbarians.  It  is  relieved, 
here  and  there,  by  alleviation  of  human  suffering 
through  famine  and  disease  by  the  applications  of 
Western  science,  and  above  all  it  is  shot  through 
and  through  with  the  romance  of  Christian  Mis¬ 
sions,  with  their  liberation  from  superstitions, 
their  uplift  to  nobler  planes  of  morals,  their 
inspirations  with  new  faith  and  hope,  of  great 
masses  of  the  peoples  who  beforetime  sat  in 
darkness  and  the  shadow  of  death.  But  the  com¬ 
mercial,  diplomatic,  militaristic,  and,  to  a  great 
degree,  the  political  aspects  of  the  story,  are  a 
practically  unmitigated  record  of  selfish  greed, 
and  ruthless  exploitation  and  oppression. 

'And  now  a  latest  chapter  has  been  added  to 
the  record  by  the  publication  of  the  King-Crane 
report  on  the  Near  East,  a  report  hitherto  sup¬ 
pressed,  even  by  the  United  States  Government. 
Therein  it  is  revealed,  that  at  the  very  moment 
when  the  common  peoples  of  all  the  allied  nations 
were  being  hypnotised  by  the  presentation  of 
noble  ideals  into  unprecedented  toil  and  sacrifice, 
while  their  soldiers — our  boys  among  them — 
were  fighting  and  dying  in  a  war  that  was  to  end 
war,  make  the  world  safe  for  democracy,  estab- 


56  THE  GOSPEL  OF.  FELLOWSHIP 


lish  righteousness  and  peace  on  earth,  self-de¬ 
termination  for  the  weaker  peoples  and  justice  for 
all,  at  that  very  moment  the  conscienceless  cun¬ 
ning  diplomats  of  Britain,  France  and  Italy, 
were  sitting  about  a  council  board  in  Paris — a 
gambling  table  it  might  better  be  called — with 
the  lives  of  millions,  the  future,  nay,  the  very 
existence  of  whole  peoples,  as  the  stakes,  com¬ 
placently  playing  the  game  of  intrigue.  They 
fooled  the  people  with  high-sounding  preach¬ 
ments  in  public,  and  in  the  secrecy  of  the  cham¬ 
ber  of  conspiracy  they  played  the  real  game. 
They  plotted,  manoeuvred,  deceived  and  fought 
for  the  only  objectives  of  the  war  which  were 
real  and  worth  while  to  them.  They  arrived  at 
their  results  by  secret  treaties,  “gentlemen’s 
agreements”  forsooth,  which  they  did  not  dare 
present  to  the  world  for  fear  of  the  consuming 
wrath  of  the  public.  They  were  allotting  the 
prizes  bought  with  the  sacrifice  of  their  peoples 
and  the  blood  of  their  sons,  especially  were  they 
carving  Turkey  and  the  Near  East.  Italy  was  to 
take  the  Adriatic  and  the  ^Egean  Italian  lakes 
with  vast  territories  in  Asia  and  Africa,  France 
was  to  gain  Syria  and  other  provinces,  England 
was  to  have  the  oil  of  Mosul  and  Mesopotamia; 
and  then  the  dogs — the  little  peoples  like  Greece 
(and  by  the  way  to  do  the  dirty  work  of  the 
final  conquest)  and  the  Balkan  States,  must  pick 
the  bones  of  Turkey, 


BETWEEN  RACES 


57 


The  unspeakable  Turk  doubtless  deserves  all 
the  curses  he  gets  for  his  misrule,  tyranny,  op¬ 
pression,  and  above  all,  his  massacres  of  the  mixed 
Christian  populations  under  his  sway.  But  he 
is  not  wholly  without  justification  in  his  defence 
of  his  national  ideals  and  very  existence  against 
the  devilish  designs  of  the  Christian  nations  of 
Europe — at  least  no  “holy”  war  can  be  declared 
against  him  at  present. 

Such  is  the  present  situation  in  race  relation¬ 
ships.  Isolation  and  insulation  are  gone  forever, 
henceforth  the  peoples  of  the  earth  are  to  be 
mixed  and  mingled.  Steam  and  electricity,  trade 
and  commerce,  as  well  as  science  and  religion,  are 
shrinking  the  world.  We  all  have  to  live  to¬ 
gether  in  a  house  constantly  growing  smaller. 
Juxtaposition,  contact  in  every  relation  of  our 
common  world  life  is  inevitable.  But  juxtapo¬ 
sition,  contact,  does  not  bring  harmony  and  fel¬ 
lowship.  It  may  bring  just  the  opposite. 

The  instinctive  race  antipathies  of  the  East 
against  the  West,  sharpened  by  religious  antag¬ 
onisms  and  above  all  inflamed  by  the  arrogance, 
contempt  and  even  exploitation  and  oppression, 
practised  by  the  white  race  towards  the  darker 
races,  these  are  manifest  in  deepening  resent¬ 
ments  and  smouldering  hatreds  everywhere  among 
these  peoples. 

Why  have  not  these  smouldering  passions  burst 
into  flame  to  kindle  a  wide-world  conflagration? 


58  THE  gospel  of  fellowship 


Why  have  not  these  gathering  forces  risen  in  re¬ 
volt  against  white  domination? 

Two  things  have  hitherto  restrained  them  and 
delayed  the  catastrophe.  One  is  the  lack  of  any 
solidarity,  any  capacity  for  a  common  will  or 
concerted  action  among  the  darker  races.  The 
other  is  their  conscious  inferiority  to  the  white 
races  in  the  knowledge  and  use  of  the  forces 
which  physical  science  has  discovered  and  har¬ 
nessed  to  human  service,  particularly  to  the  ser¬ 
vice  of  destruction  in  warfare. 

But  these  two  restraints  are  rapidly  dissolving. 
The  East  is  swiftly  mastering  Western  science. 
To-day,  Japan  equals  and,  perhaps  in  some  par¬ 
ticulars,  excels  many  of  the  Western  nations  in 
her  knowledge  and  use  of  science  for  all  purposes, 
particularly  the  uses  of  warfare.  Moreover  she 
has  already  proved  her  new  armour.  This  little 
David  among  the  nations  boldly  challenged  the 
great  Goliath  of  the  West,  the  behemoth  of  the 
peoples,  Russia,  and  won  an  astounding  and 
complete  victory. 

The  news  of  that  victory  ran  like  wildfire 
throughout  the  Far  East.  It  thrilled  the  hearts 
of  Chinaman,  East  Indian,  Turk,  Armenian,  alike, 
It  kindled  a  new  and  fierce  hope  in  their  breasts. 
The  dark  man  had  met  the  hated  white  on  his 
own  chosen  field  of  contest  and  had  triumphed 
over  him!  What  possibilities  and  prospects  of 
self-respect,  freedom,  independence,  aye,  domina- 


BETWEEN  RACES 


59 


tion  that  event  opened  to  them !  The  stir  is  felt 
everywhere.  China  is  agonising  in  the  throes  of 
a  new  birth.  When  a  new,  united  People  issues 
from  the  womb,  it  will  be  perhaps  the  strongest 
nation  on  earth,  both  in  resources  and  in  the 
native  vigour  of  its  people.  India  is  in  revolt 
from  one  end  to  the  other  against  the  hated  white 
domination  and,  apparently,  the  British  govern¬ 
ment  knows  no  better  way  of  dealing  with  that 
revolt  than  shutting  up  thousands  of  the  finest, 
most  devoted  of  the  native  patriots  in  jail.  Egypt 
has  received  her  independence.  It  will  not  be  long 
before  British  control  is  relaxed  over  both  Meso¬ 
potamia  and  Palestine.  I  venture  to  prophesy 
that  the  day  is  not  far  off  when,  in  a  large  degree, 
she  will  withdraw  from  India.  Britain  is  getting 
tired  of  acting  as  the  world’s  police.  She  has  too 
many  problems  at  home,  and  no  white  nation  is 
ready  to  step  into  her  place  and  assume  her 
burden.  The  Turk,  a  little  while  ago  beaten, 
crushed  and  bound  hand  and  foot  with  the  treaty 
of  Sevres,  has  returned  victorious  into  Europe 
and  dictates  to  the  frightened  Allies  his  terms, 
some  of  them  terrible  and  ruthless  towards  the 
mixed  Christian  peoples  under  his  misrule. 

There  is  an  ominous  uprising  of  the  whole 
East  against  the  West.  And,  meanwhile,  the 
Western  nations,  the  so-called  Christian  peoples, 
are  absorbed  in  internecine  strife  among  them¬ 
selves,  a  kind  of  civil  war  which  bids  fair  to  rob 


6o  THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 

them  of  the  last  vestige  of  hegemony  they  had 
won  throughout  the  world.  What  shall  be  the 
final  issue  of  this  present  chaos  of  conflicting  race 
instincts  and  ambitions?  He  would  be  a  bold 
prophet  who  should  venture  to  predict  its  details. 
But  we  have  analogies  in  history  which  sketch  an 
outline  of  possibilities,  if  ever  we  will  learn  from 
history.  The  Roman  Empire  and  civilisation,  ap¬ 
parently  as  impregnable  and  permanent  as  the 
contrasting  hills  of  the  Eternal  City,  went  down 
before  the  barbarian  flood  from  the  north.  For¬ 
tunately  that  barbarian  host  was  already  impreg¬ 
nated  with  Christianity  and  we  had  the  modern, 
somewhat  Christian  civilisation  as  the  outcome. 

But,  to-day,  white  domination  and  Western  civ¬ 
ilisation  are  threatened  with  a  new  inundation, 
and  it  carries  with  it  few  elements  that  promise 
the  resurgence  of  anything  like  a  Christian  world 
order. 

This  is  the  color  scheme  of  the  world  to-day. 
Over  two-thirds  yellow  and  dark,  less  than  one- 
third  white — which  hue  shall  finally  prevail?  Is 
that  question  to  be  decided  by  a  world-conflict 
that  shall  make  the  recent  World  War  seem  like 
a  mild,  family  altercation?  If  so,  it  will  be  the 
supreme  tragedy  of  human  history.  It  will  be  a 
Kilkenny-cat  affair,  and  remember  there  are 
twice  as  many  yellow  and  dark  cats  as  white, 
and  they  are  rapidly  developing  just  as  long  and 
sharp  claws.  This  is  no  hysterical,  panic-inspired 


BETWEEN  RACES  6 1 

picture.  It  is  a  plain  statement  of  fact  which 
we  face,  whether  we  see  it  or  not. 

What  is  the  way  out  ?  What  is  the  remedy  for 
this  desperate  situation?  Only  one  thing,  and 
that  is  a  new  understanding  and  fellowship  be¬ 
tween  the  races,  East,  West,  dark  and  white. 

And  that  fellowship  can  come  from  but  one 
source, — -religion,  and  in  its  most  fundamental 
and  essential  meaning.  Fellowship  is  the  pri¬ 
mary  meaning  of  the  word  itself.  Religion  is 
the  bond  that  binds,  not  only  the  human  soul  to 
God,  but  the  bond  that  binds  together  men  and 
peoples  and  nations  and  races  as  members  of  one 
family  under  the  universal  Fatherhood  of  the  One 
God,  Creator  and  Father  of  us  all.  Most  ethnic 
religions  are  rooted  in,  and  foster,  race-conscious¬ 
ness,  though  there  are  in  many,  dim  adumbra¬ 
tions  of  human  universalism. 

But  Christianity  supremely  and  constantly 
stands  for  the  unity  of  mankind.  It  proclaims 
boldly  “God  hath  made  of  one  blood  all  nations 
(or  races)  of  men  for  to  dwell  on  the  whole 
earth.,,  While  other  peoples  were  declaring 
proudly  that  their  ancestors  were  autochthonous, 
sprung  from  the  soil  of  their  native  lands,  while 
all  other  peoples  had  separate  and  inferior  ori¬ 
gins,  the  Hebrew  creation  story  traces  simply  all 
peoples  and  tongues  and  nations  to  one  primeval 
pair  and  one  origin,  the  dust  of  the  earth  shaped 
by  God’s  hand,  inbreathed  with  His  breath  of 


62 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


life  and  made  His  image.  It  is  an  astounding 
fact  that  among  a  people  whose  race  instincts 
were  the  narrowest  and  most  exclusive  and  whose 
race-antipathies  were  the  most  intense,  those  great 
preachers,  the  prophets,  always  insisted  on  this 
unity  of  a  common  humanity.  They  denounced 
constantly  with  withering  severity  the  Jew’s  claim 
to  exclusive  Divine  election  and  favoritism. 
The  whole  book  of  Jonah,  so  pitifully  misread 
as  a  fish  story,  is  a  gentle  but  searching  satire 
on  race  bigotry  and  intolerance.  The  vision  of 
the  Psalmist  and  of  the  great  seers  of  Israel, 
beholds  a  city  and  kingdom  of  God  that  gather 
into  one  Divine  commonwealth  of  equal  right  and 
privilege,  ruled  by  mutual  love  and  bound  to¬ 
gether  in  brotherhood,  all  peoples  and  tongues 
and  races.  And  that  conception  comes  to  its  cli¬ 
max  in  the  mission  of  Christ  to  disciple  the 
nations,  save  the  world  and  set  up  the  Kingdom 
of  Heaven,  the  celestial  order  on  earth,  wide  as 
the  world  and  long  as  eternity.  The  unity  of 
humanity  which  religion  seeks  is  far  more  than 
a  mere  mass-conception,  lit  rests  not  on  mere 
unity  of  physical  origin  and  nature.  The  “one 
blood”  is  not  sufficient  to  bind  men  and  races  to¬ 
gether  in  real  brotherhood.  You  cannot,  on  this 
basis,  argue  or  reason  away  instinctive  and  psy¬ 
chic  race  antipathies.  Nowhere  is  that  argument 
put  more  cogently  and  eloquently  than  in  Shy- 


BETWEEN  RACES  63 

lock’s  defence  of  the  common  humanity  of  the 
Jew: 

“I  am  a  Jew.  Hath  not  a  Jew  eyes?  Hath 
not  a  Jew  hands,  organs,  dimensions,  senses,  af¬ 
fections,  passions;  fed  with  the  same  food,  hurt 
with  the  same  weapons,  subject  to  the  same  dis¬ 
eases,  healed  by  the  same  means,  warmed  and 
cooled  by  the  same  winter  and  summer  as  a 
Christian  is?  If  you  prick  us,  do  we  not  bleed? 
If  you  tickle  us,  do  we  not  laugh?  If  you 
poison  us  do  we  not  die?”  Yes,  the  argument  of 
the  one  blood  is  cogent  and  conclusive.  Yet  note 
the  conclusion.  It  leads  not  to  fellowship  but  to 
cumulation  in  mutual  hatred  and  vengeance. 
“If  you  wrong  us,  shall  not  we  revenge?  If  we 
are  like  you  in  the  rest,  we  will  resemble  you  in 
that.  If  a  Jew  wrong  a  Christian,  what  is  his 
humility?  Revenge.  If  a  Christian  wrong  a 
Jew,  what  should  his  sufferance  be  by  Christian 
example  ?  Why,  revenge.  The  villainy  you 
teach  me  I  will  execute,  and  it  shall  go  hard  but 
I  will  better  the  instruction.”  And  the  tragic 
story  of  anti-Semitism  confirms  the  conclusion. 

The  “one  blood”  creates  no  sense  of  brother¬ 
hood,  and  material  interests  always  divide.  Fel¬ 
lowship  can  be  realised  on  the  spiritual  plane  only. 
Mass-consciousness,  the  sense  of  a  common  phys¬ 
ical  human  nature,  will  never  beget  the  spirit 
of  a  common  humanity. 


64 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


Fellowship  is  never  an  inevitable  fact,  based 
on  other  physical  or  material  facts,  it  is  never  an 
irresistible  conclusion  of  academic  syllogisms  or 
scientific  arguments.  It  is  a  high,  difficult,  spir¬ 
itual  art  which  must  be  diligently  practised  and 
laboriously  established.  It  demands  insight  and 
vision,  and  it  costs  service  and  sacrifice.  Therein 
lies  the  indispensable  office  and  function  of  re¬ 
ligion  in  the  world’s  race  problems.  It  is  only  as 
each  of  us  deliberately  and  wilfully  lays  aside 
his  own  race  conceit  and  arrogance,  rids  himself 
of  his  reasonless,  instinctive  antipathy  against  his 
fellow-man  on  the  mere  ground  of  his  racial  blood ; 
it  is  only  as  we  strenuously  divest  ourselves  of 
these  race  prejudices  and  clothe  ourselves  in  the 
humility  of  a  common  humanity  and  then  consider 
his  native  gifts  and  graces,  as  great  and  precious 
in  their  sphere  as  ours  are  in  ours;  it  is  only  as 
we  realise  that  these  racial  characteristics  are 
complementary  to  each  other,  that  they  are  to  be 
shared,  mutually,  and  not  set  over  against  each 
other  in  jealous  comparisons  or  even  antagonism ; 
it  is  only  as  we  realise  that  the  colour  scheme 
of  the  world  itself  is  but  the  spectrum  of  variant 
hues  and  that  only  in  the  blend  of  all  can  be  found 
the  white  light  of  a  real  and  whole  humanity — • 
it  is  only  thus  that  we  can  practise  and  achieve 
that  high  art  of  human  brotherhood.  And  the 
spirit  and  power  of  such  an  art  can  be  found 
only  in  religion,  and,  I  should  add,  supremely  in 


BETWEEN  RACES 


6S 

the  religion  of  Christ.  That  is  the  meaning  of 
the  Apostle’s  great  declaration :  “Where  there  is 
neither  Greek  nor  Jew,  circumcision  nor  uncir¬ 
cumcision,  Barbarian,  Scythian,  bond  nor  free; 
but  Christ  is  all,  and  in  all.” 

But  how  shall  that  fellowship  be  practised  and 
achieved  in  the  intercourse  between  races  ? 
There  is  only  one  way — by  sharing  our  best 
gifts  each  with  the  other.  We  of  the  West  can 
sit  humbly  at  the  feet  of  the  Oriental  and  learn 
from  him  his  sense  of  artistic  and  spiritual  values. 
We  can  get  much  of  incalculable  worth  from  his 
philosophies  and  even  his  religions.  And  we,  in 
our  turn,  can  share  with  him  our  physical  sciences 
and  our  practical  arts  and  above  all  the  supreme 
religion  which  we  originally  inherited  from  him 
and  which  will  only  reveal  its  full  spiritual  mean¬ 
ing  and  power  as  it  is  reappropriated  and  rein¬ 
terpreted  by  him.  Fellowship  in  science,  fellow¬ 
ship  in  education,  fellowship  in  mutual  service, 
these  are  the  bonds  that  alone  can  bind  us  to¬ 
gether.  One  such  venture  as  the  Rockefeller 
Foundation  in  China  does  more  to  insure  the  se¬ 
curity  of  western  civilisation  and  the  world  or¬ 
der  and  peace  than  all  the  armaments,  armies, 
navies,  and  warships  put  together,  for  they  only 
imperil  the  whole  status  of  humanity  while  such 
services  incarnate  and  create  human  brotherhood. 
If  we  could  spend  a  tithe  of  what  we  put  into 
instruments  for  mutual  destruction  into  instru- 


66 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


merits  of  mutual  service  in  the  realms  of  science 
and  education,  the  future  of  the  world  and  the 
human  race  would  be  assured. 

And  all  this  mutual  sharing  and  service  find 
their  finest  and  fullest  expression  in  modern 
Christian  Foreign  Missions.  Time  was,  when 
Foreign  Missions  meant  in  large  degree  what 
they  still  mean  to  the  average,  ignorant  layman 
of  to-day,  and  what  they  are  commonly  inter¬ 
preted  to  mean  in  our  comic  papers  and  often  in 
our  public  press.  Fanatical  bigots,  religious  en¬ 
thusiasts,  men  and  women  of  one  book  and 
often  one  idea,  ardent  sectarians  and  denomina- 
tionalists  overran  the  world,  saving  souls  from  a 
future  hell  by  patent  processes  or  “accomplish¬ 
ing  the  number  of  the  elect”  that  the  literal 
Second  Coming  of  the  Lord  upon  the  clouds 
might  be  accomplished.  Such  missionaries  were 
often  entirely  unsympathetic  with,  and  even  in¬ 
tolerant  of,  all  the  ancient  philosophies  and  re¬ 
ligions  of  the  peoples  to  whom  they  went.  To 
them,  everything  but  their  brand  of  orthodox 
Christianity  was  rank  superstition  and  heathen¬ 
ism.  There  was  no  truth  or  reality  anywhere 
save  in  their  particular  “plan  of  salvation,”  sys¬ 
tem  of  theology,  or  cult,  or  rite,  or  ceremony. 
They  had  no  human  interests  outside  their  tech¬ 
nical  task.  Physical  disease,  mental  darkness, 
social  wrongs,  made  no  appeal  to  them.  They 
were  absorbed  in  their  one  job,  the  saving  of  souls 


BETWEEN  RACES 


6* 

from  hell-fire.  Such  missionaries  have  wrought 
much  spiritual  havoc  along  with  much  good  that 
is  above  praise. 

But,  to-day,  the  wisest  and  best  Christian  mis¬ 
sionaries  in  non-Christian  lands  study  sympathet¬ 
ically  and  reverently  the  philosophies  and  reli¬ 
gions  of  the  people  to  whom  they  minister.  They 
appreciate  the  intellectual,  moral  and  spiritual 
values  they  find  therein.  They  account  them  all 
as  revelations  and  inspirations  of  the  Spirit  of 
truth  that  leadeth  into  all  truth,  gleams  and  out- 
shinings  of  the  one  light  “that  lighteth  every  man 
that  cometh  into  the  world.”  They  find  through 
them  larger  interpretations  and  deeper  enrich¬ 
ments  of  the  fundamental  and  essential  truths  of 
Christianity,  which  it  shares  in  large  measure 
with  all  religions.  Out  of  such  contacts,  alone, 
can  come  the  full  understanding  of  the  continu¬ 
ous  and  universal  Revelation  of  God  to  man, 
which  is  everywhere  and  always  one  and  the 
same. 

They  also  have  supremely  the  social  vision. 
The  purpose  of  religion  is  to  save  the  world,  not 
simply  to  insure  individual  souls,  here  and  there, 
against  hell-fire  or  assure  them  of  heavenly  bliss 
hereafter.  Everything  that  makes  for  human 
welfare  and  betterment — physical,  mental,  moral, 
spiritual,  individual,  social,  industrial,  political, 
agricultural,  educational,  religious — every  such 
thing  is  the  concern  and  interest  of  true  religion. 


68 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


We  have,  to-day,  in  our  missionary  hosts,  teach¬ 
ers,  physicians,  nurses,  agricultural  and  industrial 
and  commercial  experts,  as  well  as  pastors, 
preachers  and  evangelists.  It  takes  them  all  to 
carry  the  full  message  of  the  Gospel  and  the  full 
values  of  a  really  Christian  civilisation.  Through 
schools  and  universities,  through  hospitals  and 
agricultural  and  industrial  experiment  stations, 
through  every  agency  available,  we  are  striving 
to  put  the  best  we  have  developed  in  our  Western 
Christian  civilisation  at  the  service  of  our  breth¬ 
ren  of  other  races,  at  the  same  time  that  we  are 
earnestly  and  humbly  seeking  to  understand  and 
profit  by  the  best  they  have  to  teach  and  share 
with  us. 

Christian  Foreign  Missions  of  this  kind  (and 
most  missions  to-day  are  of  this  kind)  I  do  not 
hesitate  to  affirm  have  become  literally  “the  ar¬ 
ticle  of  a  standing  or  falling  civilisation,  aye,  of 
a  standing  or  falling  world  order.”  Unless  we 
share  our  best  with  each  other,  we  shall  in¬ 
evitably  share  our  worst.  We  shall  be  one  in 
common  calamity  if  we  will  not  be  one  in  mutual 
service.  Missions  which  shall  interpret  the  races 
to  each  other,  missions  which  shall  establish  mu¬ 
tual  understandings  and  the  highest  and  finest 
in  our  several  civilisations,  philosophies  and  re¬ 
ligions,  missions  which  shall  share  mutually  the 
best  we  have  to  contribute  to  each  other,  these 
alone  can  inspire  the  spirit  and  knit  the  bonds  of 


BETWEEN  RACES 


69 

fellowship  between  peoples  of  diverse  blood,  and 
such  fellowship  alone  can  solve  the  ominous  dif¬ 
ficulties  and  avert  the  threatening  and  fatal  perils 
of  the  race  problems  in  the  world. 

([  can  barely  touch  in  closing  the  other  branch 
of  my  theme,  the  race  problem  in  our  own  coun¬ 
try.  It  divides  into  two  distinct  heads :  The 
Negro  problem  and  the  Immigrant  problem,  pre¬ 
sented  by  the  “stranger  within  our  gates.” 

The  facts  we  have  found  and  the  principles  we 
have  applied  in  our  study  of  the  world’s  race 
problem,  are,  to  a  large  degree,  equally  patent 
and  applicable  here  in  our  own  land.  The  Negro 
problem  is  in  no  sense  a  sectional  or  regional 
problem. 

In  extent,  of  course,  it  is  more  concentrated 
and  crucial  in  the  South,  though  we  have  increas¬ 
ing  coloured  populations  in  most  of  our  north¬ 
ern  cities.  In  responsibility  we  share  alike.  Per¬ 
haps  our  Puritan  forefathers  of  New  England 
should  carry  the  heavier  end  of  this  load  of  re¬ 
sponsibility  for  they  were  possibly  more  active 
in  the  slave  trade  which  originally  brought  this 
problem  upon  us  than  were  their  contemporaries 
in  the  South.  Slavery  was  practised  originally 
throughout  our  country.  It  died  out  in  the  North 
because  it  proved  economically  unprofitable.  It 
continued  in  the  South  because  the  larger  preva¬ 
lence  of  agriculture  and  the  climatic  conditions 
proved  more  favourable  to  its  development.  But 


70 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


the  sin  of  slavery  was  our  common  sin,  now  ex¬ 
piated  in  the  blood  of  the  Civil  War  which  finally 
abolished  the  external  forms  of  chattel  slavery, 
though  it  did  not  touch  that  wage  slavery  which, 
in  our  modern  industrial  developments,  is  often 
fully  as  bad  and  is  considered  by  many  in  some 
of  its  aspects  as  possibly  worse. 

Anyhow,  however  this  responsibility  may  be 
allotted,  here  is  the  problem:  Millions  of  black 
folk  rushed  in  a  few  generations  from  savagery 
through  slavery  into  the  responsibilities  and  priv¬ 
ileges  of  a  civilisation  which  it  has  taken  the 
white  races  centuries  to  develop  and  adapt  them¬ 
selves  to.  On  the  whole,  the  race  has  shown 
an  ability  for  adjustment  which  is  little  short 
of  marvellous  when  all  the  conditions  are  consid¬ 
ered.  They  have  responded  to  their  opportuni¬ 
ties  with  eagerness  and  their  leading  spirits  have 
made  a  progress  that  is  unsurpassed,  perhaps  un¬ 
equalled,  in  the  history  of  slave  populations. 
The  stories  of  Hampton  and  Tuskegee  read  like 
romances. 

It  is  little  wonder  that  among  the  masses  of 
the  cruder,  ruder,  and  more  ignorant,  perhaps 
most  of  them  without  any  adequate  opportunities, 
ineptitudes  '  and  incapacities  to  respond  to  the 
standards  of  our  white  civilisation  should  be 
found. 

Here  is  tKe  crux  of  the  problem:  It  is  too 
often  met,  not  with  sympathetic  study  and  un- 


BETWEEN  RACES 


71 

derstanding,  but  with  mere  race  prejudice  and  race 
antipathy  of  the  most  irrational  kind.  I  know 
I  reflect  the  best  minds  of  the  South  as  well  as  of 
the  North  when  II  say  that  our  record  of  mob- 
violence  and  race-riots,  as  prevalent  in  the  North 
as  in  the  South,  which  has  branded  the  whole 
American  people  in  the  eyes  of  Europeans  as 
semi-barbarous  if  not  semi-savage,  is  a  horror 
and  an  intolerable  shame  to  every  right-minded 
American.  It  must  be  ended  at  all  costs.  It  can 
be  ended  by  one  thing  only,  the  spirit  of  fellow¬ 
ship  whose  only  final  and  adequate  source  is  our 
religion.  It  goes  without  saying  that  statutes 
must  be  passed  and  enforced,  drastic  laws,  if 
necessary,  which  shall  put  an  absolute  stop  to  all 
mob-violence  and  lawless  use  of  force,  which, 
apart  from  the  race  problem  altogether,  are  too 
commonly  characteristic  of  the  American  peo¬ 
ple  to-day.  But  beyond  that,  in  a  region  where 
law  does  not  run,  the  region  of  voluntary  human 
relations,  the  realm  and  plane  of  the  spirit,  we 
need  and  must  have  the  bond  which  only  religion 
can  create,  a  Christian  fellowship,  far  above  the 
shallow  questions  of  social  equalities,  going  far 
deeper  than  the  superficial  realm  of  social  inter¬ 
course  (you  might  have  the  empty  form  of  such 
social  equality  and  intercourse  without  any  real 
fellowship,  and  both  races  could  equally  loathe 
such  form),  a  fellowship  which  should  interpret 
each  race  to  the  other  in  mutual  understandings 


72 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


and  in  mutual  sharing  of  the  best  each  has  to  give 
for  the  welfare  and  development  of  the  other. 
,We  can  give  them  education,  technical  and  cul¬ 
tural,  an  ethical  religion,  a  sympathetic  under¬ 
standing  and  willing  helpfulness,  and,  above  all, 
an  even  justice  before  the  law,  and  they  can  give 
us  a  spontaneity  of  joy  and  cheer  in  mere  living, 
a  spiritual  insight  and  imagination  in  religion  in 
which  they  often  excel  us,  as  well  as  incalculable 
economic  values. 

Such  fellowships  are  being  worked  out  to-day, 
I  understand,  by  associations  of  leaders  of  both 
races  throughout  the  South.  There  are  eight 
hundred  counties  so  organised.  And  it  is  to  such 
efforts  that  the  best  minds  and  hearts  in  America 
look  hopefully  and  prayerfully.  It  is  the  spirit 
of  Christ  alone  which  can  make  such  efforts  ef¬ 
fective  and  their  resulting  fellowships  real.  If 
St.  Paul  were  writing,  to-day,  he  would  add  to 
his  dichotomies  of  Jew  and  Gentile,  Greek  and 
Barbarian,  bond  and  free,  another  division,  black 
and  white,  and  declare  “all  are  one  in  Christ 
Jesus.” 

One  word  in  closing  as  to  the  stranger  within 
our  gates — the  immigrant.  It  seems  as  if  God 
had  made  America  a  kind  of  experimental  sta¬ 
tion,  a  laboratory  for  the  solution  of  this  inter¬ 
racial  problem  for  the  world.  If  we  can  establish 
Christian  fellowship  between  the  polyglot  races 
within  our  borders,  the  problem  of  international 


BETWEEN  RACES 


73 


and  inter-racial  relations  throughout  the  world 
ought  to  be  more  easily  worked  out  on  the  basis 
and  the  lines  of  that  successful  experiment.  But 
it  must  be  admitted  by  all  competent  observers 
that  we  have  not  so  far  worked  it  out  very  satis¬ 
factorily. 

The  foreign  populations  in  our  large  cities,  and 
even  in  rural  districts,  dwell  more  or  less  by 
themselves,  in  separate  colonies,  often  isolated 
and  insulated  by  the  continued  use  of  their  native 
tongues,  the  observance  of  their  racial  customs 
and  traditions  and,  it  is  to  be  feared,  frequently 
by  the  maintenance  of  and  adherence  to  their  na¬ 
tional  or  racial  ethical  and  social  standards.  They 
stand  out  like  insoluble  and  unassimilable  lumps 
of  irreducible  metal  in  our  “melting  pot.” 

Such  communities  or  colonies  are  frequently 
sources  of  social  peril.  They  breed  criminals, 
the  police  tell  us.  They  are  hot-houses  for  the 
cultivation  of  wild  and  radical  programmes,  our 
conservative  citizens  assert.  They  pull  down  the 
American  standard  of  living,  our  American  labour 
leaders  complain. 

Whatever  truth  there  may  be  in  these  allega¬ 
tions  (and  that  there  is  some,  if  not  much  truth 
in  them,  we  must  all  admit)  the  explanation  is 
simple  but  not  often  understood.  Consider  the 
case  of  the  immigrant,  a  stranger  in  a  strange 
land : 

i.  He  is  stripped,  at  the  start,  of  all  the  re- 


74 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


straints  and  props  of  social  custom,  tradition  and 
environment  which  do  so  much  for  the  best  of 
us  to  keep  us  straight  and  up  to  the  requirements 
of  the  prevailing  moral  standards.  Let  me  illus¬ 
trate  :  Here  is  a  young  man  from  the  country  or 
small  town  who  makes  his  first  visit  to  a  great 
city.  Nobody  knows  him,  and  he  knows  nobody. 
He  is  a  mere  number  in  the  hotel's  books.  He  is 
plunged  into  the  solitude  of  the  crowd,  the  lone¬ 
liest  of  all  solitudes.  The  thought  occurs  to 
him,  “Here  is  my  chance.  If  I  strayed  from  the 
straight  and  narrow  path  at  home,  everybody 
would  know  it.  It  would  be  the  talk  of  the  town 
or  the  countryside.  I  would  lose  my  reputation 
and  social  standing.  I  would  violate  the  ac¬ 
cepted  standards,  and,  worst  of  all,  I  would  break 
the  peace  of  my  home,  if  not  the  hearts  of  my 
family.  But  here,  nobody  knows  me.  I  can  do 
what  I  choose,  and  none  will  heed.  I  will  see 
life.  I  will  enlarge  the  bounds  of  my  experience. 
I  will  explore  undiscovered  territory.  I  will 
satiate  my  curiosity.  I  will  paint  the  town  red.” 
Is  not  this  the  story  of  many  a  man  stripped  for 
the  first  time  of  the  ordinary  social  restraints  and 
props  of  conventional  behaviour  ? 

Here  are  millions  of  strangers  in  a  strange 
land,  in  the  solitude  of  the  crowds,  torn  up  by 
the  roots  from  their  native  soil,  stripped  of  the 
age-long  traditions  and  customs  that  surrounded 
them  from  birth,  having  lost  their  old  social 


BETWEEN  RACES 


75 


conventions  and  standards  and  found  no  new 
ones ;  church,  community,  often  family  and  home 
gone,  for  many  of  them  are  single  men.  Is  it 
any  wonder  that  they  often  lose  their  moorings 
and  are  driven  by  gusts  of  passion  and  carried 
by  the  new  ideas  of  strange  life  about  them  to 
moral  shipwreck? 

Then  consider  his  experience.  Frequently,  he 
is  mercilessly  exploited  by  our  industrial  sys¬ 
tem,  eagerly  seeking  cheap  foreign  labour.  He 
is  a  mere  tool  to  be  used,  perhaps  used  up,  in  its 
process  and  then  thrown  carelessly  into  the  scrap 
heap.  No  one  cares  for  his  soul,  his  personality. 
Even  his  own  countrymen  who  have  come  here 
before  him  and  learned  something  of  the  lan¬ 
guage  and  customs  of  the  strange  land,  fre¬ 
quently  use  their  superior  knowledge  to  prey 
upon  him  most  ruthlessly.  We  all  know  what 
padrones  do  to  their  own  people.  'If  an  immi¬ 
grant  has  a  family  and  sends  his  children  to  the 
public  schools,  these  children  are  often  socially 
ostracised  by  native  born  American  children,  or 
children  one  degree  removed  from  foreign  birth. 
The  finger  of  contempt  is  pointed  at  them.  They 
are  called  “dagoes”  and  “hunkies.” 

By-and-by,  perhaps,  the  home  itself  begins  to 
break  up.  The  children  acquire  a  smattering  of 
our  language  and  customs,  particularly  the 
“smarty”  Americanisms  of  the  streets,  and  they 
turn  with  contempt  on  the  father  and  mother  who 


76 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


persist  in  their  queer  foreign  ways.  And  so  the 
process  goes  on.  Is  it  to  be  wondered  at  that  life 
grows  confused,  loses  its  stability  and  its  victims 
are  driven  to  recklessness  or  else  to  an  ingrowing 
association  with  those  they  still  understand,  their 
own  people  ? 

What  is  the  remedy?  Americanisation  is  the 
common  reply.  And  yet  the  ordinary  process  of 
Americanisation  is  frequently  superficial  and  fu¬ 
tile,  and  worse  than  that,  often  insulting  and 
degrading  to  the  self-respect  of  the  foreigner  and 
his  rightful  race-consciousness  and  pride. 

For  in  what  does  it  consist?  Frequently,  just 
in  giving  a  smattering  of  the  English  language 
and  teaching  the  foreigner  to  wave  the  flag,  sing 
The  Star  Spangled  Banner ,  and  repeat  parrot-like 
certain  shibboleths  of  conventional,  patriotic  cant. 
Or  else,  as  is  commonly  the  case,  the  American- 
iser  assumes  without  question  that  America  has 
all  to  give  to,  and  nothing  to  receive  from,  the 
stranger  within  her  gates.  The  foreigner  is  to 
receive  all  the  privileges  and  bring  no  corre¬ 
sponding  contribution.  He  is  to  be  “uplifted” 
and  we  are  to  do  all  the  uplifting.  There  is  no 
fellowship,  no  sympathetic  understanding,  no 
spiritual  contacts,  no  sharing  of  gifts  or  service. 

Is  it  not  high  time  that  we,  conceited,  self- 
contained,  arrogant  Americans,  should  recognise 
that  these  strangers  that  flock  to  our  gates  come 
many  of  them  bearing  precious  gifts,  gifts  often 


BETWEEN  RACES 


n 


that  we  sadly  lack  and  deeply  need?  I  speak 
not  now  of  the  physical  contributions  of  their 
labour  to  our  industrial  production  and  material 
wealth,  though  where  would  America  be  to-day, 
economically,  if  it  were  not  for  the  enormous 
contributions  of  so-called  foreign  labour?  But 
I  speak  of  intellectual,  literary,  artistic  contribu¬ 
tions,  moral  and  spiritual  values.  Often  the 
humblest  and  commonest  of  them  have  gifts  in 
them,  gifts  in  which  America  is  characteristi¬ 
cally  poverty-stricken.  Such  recognition  would 
do  much  to  strengthen  the  foreigner’s  personal, 
family  and  racial  self-respect,  and  upon  that  foun¬ 
dation  rests  in  large  degree  the  stability  of  life, 
homes  and  personal  character. 

Jane  Addams  tried  an  interesting  experiment 
in  this  direction  at  Hull  House,  Chicago.  She 
found  the  superficially  Americanised  children  in 
the  foreign  families  of  the  district  losing  respect 
for  their  queer,  foreign  parents.  She  held  an 
exposition  of  arts  and  crafts  at  Hull  House. 
And  when  the  children  found  that  their  parents 
could  execute  work  which  won  the  admiration  of 
the  best  Americans,  they  recovered  their  respect 
for  their  parents. 

Upon  our  social  settlements,  our  Young  Men’s 
Christian  Associations  and  Young  Women’s 
Christian  Associations,  above  all  upon  our 
churches,  rest  largely  this  great  responsibility  and 
task  of  fostering  and  developing  the  spirit  of 


78  THE  gospel  of  fellowship 


mutual  understanding  and  fellowship,  of  sharing 
our  best  among  the  many  racial  varieties  of  our 
polyglot  America.  Voluntary  groups  can  do 
much  in  this  direction.  Particularly  can  our  col¬ 
leges  and  universities  render  large  service,  espe¬ 
cially  those  situated  in  large  cities  or  centres 
where  the  race  problem  centres  and  presses. 

Such  groups  can  watch  legislation  and  secure 
protection  for  the  weak,  helpless  and  ignorant 
against  the  oppression  of  our  ruthless  industrial 
system  and  also  the  social  contempt  of  our  some¬ 
what  arrogant  Americanism  and  too  conscious 
white  or  Anglo-Saxon  superiority.  Above  all, 
they  can  act  as  ganglia,  nerve  centres  of  fellow¬ 
ship,  in  the  sympathetic  system  of  our  divided 
body  political  and  social. 

Yes,  America  is,  as  I  have  said,  in  the  Provi¬ 
dence  of  God,  the  laboratory  and  experimental 
station  for  the  solution  of  that  paramount  prob¬ 
lem  of  the  near  future,  inter-racial  relations. 
And  if  we  can  develop  here  a  true  and  real  inter¬ 
racial  fellowship,  the  problems  of  inter-racial  and 
international  harmony  and  unity  throughout  the 
world  ought  to  be  easier  of  solution.  The  Amer¬ 
ican  of  the  future  may  cease  to  be  the  exclusive 
type  of  one  race  inheritance  (he  has  long  ago 
ceased  to  be  exclusively  Anglo-Saxon)  and  com¬ 
bine,  in  himself,  the  best  inheritances  of  many 
races.  He  may  become  the  representative  of  a 
united  and  common  humanity,  a  son  of  man.  At 


BETWEEN  RACES 


79 


any  rate  we  shall  have  taken  a  long  step  toward 
that  day  of  consummation  when  “the  kings  of  the 
earth  and  their  peoples  shall  bring  their  wealth,” 
the  best  each  nation  and  race  have  to  offer,  into 
the  city  of  God,  the  celestial  civilisation,  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  on  earth,  towards  which  the 
prophets  and  seers  and,  above  all,  the  Christ  have 
ever  hoped  and  prayed  and  striven. 


LECTURE  III 


FELLOWSHIP  BETWEEN  THE  NATIONS 

THE  nation  is  comparatively  a  late  arrival 
in  the  history  of  the  human  race,  authori¬ 
ties  tell  us.  There  are  suggestions  and  pos¬ 
sibly  primitive  types  of  it  in  early  human  times. 
But  in  its  present  form  it  is  largely  the  outbirth 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  has  reached  its  climax 
of  development  in  the  nineteenth  and  twentieth 
centuries.  And  now,  it  shows  signs — some, 
among  whom  I  place  myself,  would  say  gives 
promise — of  being  possibly  merged  or  federated 
in  a  larger  organisation  of  our  common,  human 
race.  The  earliest  forms  of  human  association 
were  doubtless  those  of  the  family,  enlarging  into 
the  clan  and  the  tribe,  ruled  by  the  “old  man” 
or  strong  man  of  the  group,  then  possibly  in 
patriarchal  fashion  by  the  chieftain  or  sheik, 
possibly,  in  some  instances,  with  a  council  of 
elders.  Such  organised  groups  of  nomads  wan¬ 
dered  over  the  earth  in  search  of  pastures  new, 
of  booty,  loot  or  captives,  subduing  weaker 
groups. 

Then  came  mass  aggregations  under  con- 

80 


BETWEEN  THE  NATIONS  8l 

quest.  The  great  empires,  claiming  more  or  less 
universal  dominion  over  all  the  known  tribes  of 
mankind,  sweep  down  the  vast  vistas  of  history, 
the  dim  and  misty  Hittite  Empire  in  the  dawn- 
ages,  the  Egyptian,  Assyrian,  Babylonian,  Per¬ 
sian,  Macedonian,  Roman,  these  are  the  out¬ 
standing  names  most  familiar  to  us,  but  how 
many  other  rules  of  force  over  differing  peoples 
they  represent  we  know  not.  They  are  all  alike 
in  this — they  rest  on  pure  force,  not  on  the  wills 
of  the  peoples.  They  overpass  all  natural  boun¬ 
daries,  mountains,  rivers,  seas.  They  hold  in¬ 
discriminately  under  their  sway  people  of  all 
languages,  cults,  traditions,  cultures,  religions, 
bloods  and  races.  There  is  no  homogeneity  about 
them,  no  unity  of  ideals  or  standards  among  their 
subject  races.  Apparently  Rome  alone  attempted 
to  establish  the  reign  of  universal  law,  defining 
and  protecting  common  rights,  though,  for  the 
most  part,  she  restricted  jealously  her  citizenship 
to  the  members  of  one  race  and  largely  to  the 
inhabitants  of  one  city. 

Then  came  the  break-up  of  the  empire  by  the 
incursion  of  the  barbarians,  then  its  revival,  in 
some  measure  of  its  former  power,  under  Charle¬ 
magne.  It  lingered  long,  that  dawn  of  universal 
empire,  a  shadow  of  its  former  glory,  finally  a 
mere  name,  Roman  Emperor,  given  to  the  ruling 
representatives  of  the  House  of  Hapsburg,  and 
the  titles  of  the  Emperors  of  Germany  and  Rus- 


82 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


sia,  “the  grin  without  the  cat,”  And  now  even 
the  grin  is  gone! 

Napoleon  the  First  came  nearer  establishing 
the  old  idea  of  a  universal  empire  than  any  one 
else  in  modern  times,  but  that  iridescent  bubble 
soon  burst.  And  now  has  arrived  the  nation  in 
the  place  of  the  tribe  or  the  empire  as  the  modern 
political  organisation  of  peoples,  the  outbirth,  as 
I  have  said,  of  the  Middle  Ages,  originally  a 
merger  of  feudal  factors  under  a  central  royal 
power,  functioning  furiously  in  all  the  mediaeval 
conflicts,  specially  in  the  Thirty  Years’  War,  but 
perhaps  reaching  its  climax  in  the  nineteenth  cen¬ 
tury  and  now  beginning  to  show  signs,  promise 
of  possible  transformation  into  larger  confedera¬ 
tions  that  shall  conform  more  closely  to  modem 
economic  and  commercial  needs  and  the  develop¬ 
ment  of  the  human  race. 

“What  is  a  Nation?”  Renan  has  a  brilliant 
essay  under  that  title,  which  seems,  to  me,  to  ap¬ 
proach  at  least  the  most  satisfactory  answer  to 
the  question. 

A  nation  is  not  necessarily,  or  even  primarily, 
delimited  and  determined  by  natural  geographical 
boundaries,  though  these  have  their  effect  in  de¬ 
termining  and  developing  the  national  conscious¬ 
ness  and  life  of  a  group  of  peoples.  High  moun¬ 
tains  and  broad  rivers  are  hard  to  cross,  and 
broad  plains  are  naturally  habitable  and  easily 
traversable,  consequently  topography  has  its 


BETWEEN  THE  NATIONS  83 

strong  influence  in  fixing  the  habitat  and  close 
relationship  of  human  beings. 

And  yet  nations  overflow  mountains,  rivers  and 
even  seas — witness  the  British  nation — and  still 
preserve  intense  national  consciousness  and  loy¬ 
alty.  And,  on  the  other  hand,  nation  is  divided 
from  nation  by  invisible  artificially  created 
boundary  lines  stretching  across  broad  and  easily 
passable  plains.  A  nation  is  not  determined  by 
the  possession  and  use  of  a  common  language, 
though  this  is  perhaps  the  strongest  external 
bond  of  unity,  because  it  is  the  most  efficient 
means  of  the  intercommunication  of  thoughts 
and  ideas,  which  are  the  real  bonds  which  bind 
men  together.  Hence  the  vigorous  efforts  of  the 
former  Russian  and  German  imperialisms  to 
compel  alien  races  within  their  jurisdiction  to 
learn  and  use  exclusively  the  language  of  the 
dominant  race.  That  was  a  most  effective  means 
of  nationalising  and  subjecting,  if  not  of  assimi¬ 
lating  them.  Hence  also  our  strong  insistence 
upon  the  learning  of  the  English  language  by  all 
our  immigrants  and  especially  their  children.  It 
is  the  most  effective  approach  to  what  is  called 
Americanisation. 

And  yet  the  Swiss  people  are  one  of  the  strong¬ 
est  and  most  compact  little  nations  on  the  face 
of  the  earth,  though  they  speak  three  different 
languages.  On  the  other  hand,  the  British  and 
American  peoples  speak  the  same  language  and 


84  the  gospel  of  fellowship 


yet  in  some  respects  there  are  no  more  distinct 
nationalities  than  these  two  nations  exhibit.  And 
unfortunately  sometimes,  particularly  on  the 
American  side,  our  nationalities  are  apt  to  be¬ 
come  antagonistic.  It  is  not  unity  of  religion, 
though  that  helps.  Wherever  religious  cult  pre¬ 
vails  predominantly,  as  in  Roman  Catholic, 
Protestant,  or  Mohammedan  countries,  perhaps 
the  ties  are  a  bit  closer  than  between  groups  of 
variant  faiths.  Yet  Germany,  England,  and  espe¬ 
cially  our  own  United  States,  have  found  out  how 
to  form  folk  of  differing  creeds  into  a  unity  of 
national  spirit. 

•It  is  not  even  the  possession  of  a  common 
government  that  makes  a  nation,  though  such 
political  expression  of  national  solidarity  is  es¬ 
sential  to  the  best  functioning  of  national  life. 

But  Austria-Hungary  possessed  one,  or  at  least 
a  dual  government,  but  it  was  a  miscellaneous, 
mechanical  mixture  of  variant  nations,  who  fell 
apart  at  the  first  opportunity.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  Poles,  though  for  a  century  ruthlessly 
torn  asunder  and  divided  like  spoils  among  three 
governments,  the  Russian,  Austrian  and  German, 
have  maintained  their  national  consciousness  and 
spirit  at  white  heat.  And  the  Jews,  though  for 
nearly  two  millenniums  without  a  home,  a  capital, 
a  government,  or  any  political  expression  or  form, 
individually  citizens  or  subjects  of  every  nation 
in  the  civilised  world,  still  maintain  an  intense 


BETWEEN  THE  NATIONS 


85 

national  as  well  as  religious  and  racial  con¬ 
sciousness.  A  common  government  makes  a 
state  but  not  necessarily  a  nation. 

As  Renan  says,  nationality  is  a  thing  of  the 
mind,  the  will,  the  heart,  the  spirit,  not  of  any 
externals  whatsoever.  A  nation  is  a  group  which 
cherishes  common  standards,  ideals,  aims,  pur¬ 
poses,  expressed  perhaps  in  curious  traditions  and 
customs.  It  is  cemented  most  strongly,  intensified 
and  fixed,  by  a  common  experience  of  struggle, 
labour,  conflict  for  the  establishment,  defence  and 
maintenance  of  those  common  ideas.  It  is  built, 
finally,  on  a  common  will  of  the  people  and  can 
be  maintained  strongly  and  successfully  only  by  a 
daily  plebiscite.  It  lasts  only  as  long  as  the  will 
of  the  people  sustains  it.  That  is  the  meaning 
of  democracy.  Nationalism  is  a  faith,  a  religion. 

Consequently  nations  are  no  more  fixed,  un¬ 
changeable  entities  than  are  religious  denomina¬ 
tions.  They  are  constantly  breaking  up  into 
smaller  independent  factions,  or  uniting  in  larger 
fusions.  The  modern  tendency  seems  to  be  in 
the  latter  direction.  In  the  Middle  Ages  there 
were  literally  hundreds  of  national  states  in  Eu¬ 
rope,  each  claiming  independent  sovereignty.  At 
The  Hague  Conferences  there  were  only  fifty- 
nine  nations  in  all  the  world  claiming  independent 
sovereignty, — a  number  slightly  increased  by  the 
attempted  but  uncertain  settlements  after  the  re¬ 
cent  World  War  as  the  basis  of  self-determina- 


86 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


tion  of  peoples.  This  fact  seems  to  give  promise 
of  larger  fusions  and  federations  in  the  future. 
How  shall  we,  to-day,  in  the  light  of  history  and 
modern  development,  appraise  the  value  of  na¬ 
tionalism  and  its  manifestation  in  the  individual, 
the  spirit  of  patriotism?  What  are  their  func¬ 
tion  and  office?  What  is  to  be  their  future? 

To  criticise  either  is  to-day,  I  know,  as  danger¬ 
ous  as  to  touch  the  Ark  of  the  Covenant.  Na¬ 
tionalism  is  enshrined  in  the  very  holy  of  holies 
in  the  average  modern  mind,  and  patriotism  is 
the  supreme  virtue,  beside  which  all  the  fruits 
of  the  spirit  and  the  graces  of  Christian  charac¬ 
ter  are  insignificant.  That  is  the  natural  and  in¬ 
evitable  temper  of  peoples  who  have  just  emerged 
from  a  great  war.  To  question  either  is  utter 
blasphemy. 

Still,  I  am  persuaded,  the  risk  must  be  taken. 
To  detract  in  the  slightest  measure  from  the  su¬ 
preme  significance  of  those  worthy  and  holy 
nationalistic  ideals  for  which  each  nation  in  its 
degree  undoubtedly  stands,  to  diminish  or  even 
question  their  incalculable  value  as  spiritual  con¬ 
tributions  to  the  development  and  welfare  of 
their  own  people  and  even  of  the  human  race,  to 
decry  the  venerable  and  beautiful  traditions,  cher¬ 
ished  in  the  hearts  of  the  several  peoples,  and  in 
which  their  ideals  find  form  and  expression — 
that  is  farthest  from  my  thought.  Nationalism 
has  its  indispensable  use  and  service  in  fostering, 


BETWEEN  THE  NATIONS 


87 


defending-  and  maintaining  these  national  cul¬ 
tures  and  contributions.  I  would  not  interfere  in 
the  slightest  with  that  use  or  service. 

I  could  not,  if  1  would,  add  one  note  to  the  uni¬ 
versal  resounding  chorus  in  praise  of  patriotism. 
It  is  perhaps,  saving  only  the  love  motif,  the  chief 
theme  of  most  of  our  literature,  art  and  drama. 
Nor  would  I  introduce  one  discordant  note  into 
that  chorus.  Patriotism  is  the  consuming  pas¬ 
sion  of  the  popular  heart,  the  moving  cause  of 
the  incalculable  service,  sacrifice  and  heroism 
which  irradiate  and  glorify  the  records  of  history 
and  the  story  of  human  life.  God  forbid  that 
I  should  dim  one  ray  in  the  haloes  that  justly 
rest  upon  the  heads  of  those  real  patriots  who 
have  toiled,  suffered,  fought  and  died  for  those 
supreme  ideas  and  ideals — those  paramount  hu¬ 
man  values  of  liberty,  justice,  democracy,  of 
which  their  nations  were  to  them  the  visible 
and  tangible  incarnation. 

Having  paid  this  entirely  sincere  tribute  to  true 
nationalism  and  real  patriotism,  I  want  to  say 
forthrightly  and  perhaps  flatly  that,  to  my  mind, 
a  blind  and  exaggerated  patriotism  and  an  over¬ 
weening  and  ignorant  nationalism  are  to-day  the 
greatest,  the  most  ominous  and  most  imminent 
perils  that  beset  the  peace  of  the  world,  the  wel¬ 
fare  of  humanity  and  the  very  existence  of  civil¬ 
isation  itself. 

For  horrible  examples  of  blind  and  mad  patriot- 


88 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


ism  our  minds  instinctively  revert  to  the  Germans 
during  the  late  war.  We  remember  their  fanat¬ 
ical  war-cry  Deutschland  iiber  alles,  their  arro¬ 
gant  claim  to  supreme  kultur,  their  insane  con¬ 
viction  that  a  divine  mission  was  laid  upon  them 
to  impose  that  kultur  by  force  upon  all  other 
peoples,  who  were  all  alike  weaklings  and  rude, 
ignorant  barbarians  beside  God’s  supermen  of  the 
Teutonic  race,  that  all  dolichocephalic  or  long¬ 
headed  humans  belonged  to  their  blood  and  all 
brachycephalic  or  short-headed,  that  is  all  the 
rest  of  mankind,  could  find  their  salvation  only 
in  meek  submission  to  German  tutelage  and  rule. 
We  recall  their  insane  Hymn  of  Hate.  It  all 
sounds  like  the  ravings  of  a  lunatic  asylum.  And 
yet  it  was  the  carefully  inculcated  and  assidu¬ 
ously  cultivated  spirit  of  a  really  great  and  noble 
nation.  That  was  the  approved  type  of  German 
patriotism. 

And  it  is  by  no  means  the  monopoly  of  the 
German.  It  is  characteristic,  in  varying  degrees, 
of  every  people  and  nation.  It  is  patriotism  ac¬ 
cording  to  the  popular  notion. 

The  average  Englishman  makes  a  catalogue  of 
nearly  all  possible  human  virtues,  and  then  calmly 
prefixes  to  them  the  adjective  “ Anglo- S axon.,: 9 
He  assumes  that  honesty,  fair-dealing  and  truth¬ 
fulness  are  his  sole  possession,  and  that  justice 
and  liberty  were  invented  and  patented  by  him. 
Therefore,  world  dominion,  world-wide  imperial- 


BETWEEN  THE  NATIONS 


89 

ism  is  England’s  divine  mission.  Britannia 
must  rule  the  waves.  She  must,  everywhere, 
assume  the  White  Man’s  Burden  and  incidentally 
the  diamonds  of  South  Africa,  the  oil  of  Mosul, 
the  wealth  of  the  Indies  and  all  the  other  acciden¬ 
tal  accretions  that  cling  to  that  burden.  She, 
alone,  can  uplift  the  down-trodden,  free  the 
oppressed,  civilise  the  barbarous,  and  Christianise 
the  heathens. 

The  average  British  mind  is  often  singularly 
obtuse  to  the  point  of  view  and  reasoning  of  any 
other  mind,  and  oblivious,  if  not  unconscious,  of 
any  other  national  virtues  than  those  that  are 
native  and  indigenous. 

And  we,  above  all  peoples,  need  to  pray  the 
prayer : 

“0  wad  some  power  the  gif  tie  gie  us 
To  see  ourselves  as  ithers  see  us.” 

Americanism  is  often  to  the  foreigner  a  syn¬ 
onym  for  crass  materialism,  greed,  the  supreme 
exaltation  and  domination  of  the  money  motive 
and  money  power,  over-weening  self-conceit  and 
arrogance,  unrestrained  boastfulness  and  often 
excessively  bad  manners.  And  yet  to  us  it  is  the 
sum  of  all  virtues. 

We  have  recently  had  a  veritable  epidemic  of 
one  hundred  per  cent  Americanism,  stimulated 
by  war  hysteria.  To  entertain  the  notion  that 
our  Constitution,  that  divine  and  infallible  docu¬ 
ment,  might  be  amended,  or  our  institutions  and 


90 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


our  machinery  of  government  improved,  was  to 
become  suspect ;  to  criticise  ourselves  and  suggest 
that  we  might  learn  something  from  other  na¬ 
tions,  was  to  approach  dangerously  “high  trea¬ 
son.”  An  Iowa  school  teacher  was  arraigned 
before  a  local  judge  on  the  charge  of  having  in 
her  teaching  referred  favourably  to  certain  prac¬ 
tices  and  institutions  of  a  foreign  nation.  She 
was  solemnly  warned  by  the  judge  that  “foreign 
nations,  governments  and  institutions  should 
never  be  mentioned  in  the  presence  of  American 
children  save  in  terms  of  censure !”  To  be  open- 
minded,  progressive  and  liberal  in  view  and 
thought  means  sometimes  to  incur  the  epithet 
of  Bolshevist.  To  be  truly  patriotic  you  must 
always  assume  that  your  country’s  claim,  in  every 
controversy,  is  of  course  right  and  her  cause  im¬ 
peccable.  To  entertain  a  doubt  is  to  be  false  to 
your  loyalty.  At  any  rate  Decatur’s  famous 
toast  expresses  the  essence  of  patriotism :  “My 
country,  may  she  be  right,  but  my  country  right 
or  wrong.”  And  Carl  Schurz’s  substitute  smacks 
of  treason :  “My  country,  when  right  to  be  kept 
right,  when  wrong  to  be  set  right.”  Thus  loy¬ 
alty  to  a  fallible  human  institution  is  set  above 
loyalty  to  our  highest  ideals  of  truth,  righteous¬ 
ness,  and  justice,  which  is  finally  subversive  of 
all  morals. 

Our  ordinary  processes  of  Americanisation  do 
not  mean  an  assimilation  whereby  the  best  in  each 


BETWEEN  THE  NATIONS 


91 


group  is  appropriated  by  the  other:  it  is  often  a 
forced  conformation  of  the  foreigner  to  fixed 
and  immutable,  because  perfect  type,  the  accepted 
American  type.  We  are  frequently  blind  to,  or 
even  contemptuous  of,  the  precious  gifts  which 
the  stranger  within  our  gates  brings  with  him, 
gifts  we  often  sadly  need  in  our  civilisation. 
And,  finally,  in  the  recent  red  hysteria  that  one 
hundred  per  cent  Americanism  burst  out  in  a 
blind  fury  of  persecution.  Every  foreigner  was 
a  suspect.  “ Agents  provocateurs”  were  employed 
by  the  Department  of  Justice,  fake  communist 
societies  were  formed  by  them,  ignorant,  simple 
minded  aliens  lured  into  them,  incriminating  evi¬ 
dence  manufactured  and  fastened  upon  them, 
arrests  without  warrant  made,  examination 
by  torture  practised,  imprisonment  with¬ 
out  trial,  trial  without  counsel  for  the  ac¬ 
cused  common,  the  ordinary  safeguards  of 
the  law  denied.  And  so  on  ad  infinitum  et  ad 
nauseam* ,  Besides  the  constitutional  rights,  free¬ 
dom  of  speech  and  right  of  assembly  were  prac¬ 
tically  suppressed  for  all.  It  is  the  darkest  page 
in  the  history  of  America,  worthy  of  the  Czarist 
regime  in  Russia.  And  yet  it  was  all  done  in  the 
name  of  a  one  hundred  per  cent  Americanism. 
In  fact,  when  one  studies  these  perversions  of 
patriotism  to  be  found  among  all  nations  one  is 
tempted  to  agree  with  Samuel  Johnson’s  famous 
dictum:  “Patriotism  is  the  common  refuge  of 


92 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


scoundrels.”  At  any  rate,  one  recognises  the 
truth  of  Renan’s  famous  declaration,  which  I 
rudely  translate  from  his  perfect  French:  “I 
often  say  to  myself  that  an  individual  who  should 
have  the  vices  held  as  virtues  in  the  case  of  a  na¬ 
tion,  who  should  cultivate  self-conceit  and  boast¬ 
fulness,  who  should  be  jealous,  egotistic  and 
quarrelsome  to  the  limit,  who  could  not  brook 
denial  without  drawing  his  sword,  such  a  person 
would  be  the  most  intolerable  of  men.” 

And  yet  as  Sumner  of  Yale  once  truly  said: 
“Those  qualities  only  make  a  nation  truly  great 
which  make  a  man  great.”  And  among  these 
qualities  surely  are  self-restraint,  modesty,  will¬ 
ingness  to  admit  the  possibility  of  being  in  the 
wrong,  and  to  submit  to  argument  and  the  ar¬ 
bitrament  of  reason.  And  yet  all  these  when 
applied  to  the  case  of  one’s  country  and  her 
claims  are  considered  pusillanimity  and  the  utter 
failure  of  patriotism.  Peoples  inspired  by  such 
patriotism  can  do  naught  but  war  to  the  finish, 
whenever  a  difference  occurs  between  them. 
Again  the  philosophy  of  nationalism  has  been  car¬ 
ried  of  late  to  the’ final  pitch  of  unreason.  Ger¬ 
many  once  more  has  been  the  chief  offender. 
But  she  has  probably  but  expressed  more  frankly, 
if  not  brutally,  than  the  rest  of  us  the  prevailing 
though  sometimes  half-unconscious  national  phi¬ 
losophy  of  most  peoples.  Those  spiritual  heirs 


BETWEEN  THE  NATIONS 


93 


of  Machiavelli — Nietzsche,  Bernhardi,  Treitschke 
and  their  ilk,  derived  from  their  master  in  un¬ 
broken  apostolic  succession  certain  fundamental 
conceptions  of  the  state  which  they  diligently  in¬ 
culcated  in  the  German  popular  mind. 

The  State  is  an  end  in  itself.  It  can  have  no 
consideration  outside  of  itself.  Its  one  obliga¬ 
tion  is  self-preservation  and  expansion.  It  has 
no  other  duty.  Its  one  means  is  force.  It  is 
super-moral,  above  the  laws  of  God  or  man. 
The  divine  right  of  kings  has  become  the  divine 
right  of  states.  As  the  king  could  do  no  wrong, 
so  the  state  can  do  no  wrong  to-day.  Consider¬ 
ations  of  justice,  the  rights  of  others,  particularly 
the  weak,  are  intolerable  limitations  and  restric¬ 
tions.  They  become  sins  when  they  interfere 
with  the  Divine  mission  of  the  state  to  expand 
and  extend  its  power  and  kultur. 

There  can  be  no  such  thing  as  international 
law  or  principle  which  regulates  the  intercourse 
and  inter-relations  of  sovereign  states.  For 
these  imply  a  restriction  of  sovereignty.  And 
unlimited  sovereignty  is  the  very  essence,  the 
soul  of  the  state.  To  admit  any  limitation  of  that 
sovereignty  from  outside  is  to  commit  state  sui¬ 
cide.  All  history  is  simply  a  “trial  by  battle” 
between  such  sovereign  states  for  supreme  domi¬ 
nation.  And  the  super-state  must  be  left  unlet 
and  unhindered  to  drive  to  that  goal  regardless 


94 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


of  the  alleged  rights  of  humanity  or  the  weaker 
peoples  she  may  trample  under  her  feet  in  her 
destined  course. 

Such  a  philosophy  of  nationalism  and  of  the 
state  has  been  innate  and  implied  among  all  peo¬ 
ples  since  nations  came  into  existence,  though 
none  have  declared  it  so  brutally  and  frankly  or 
carried  it  so  inexorably  to  its  logical  conclusions 
as  have  these  representatives  of  modern  Germany. 

Now  such  a  philosophy  can  result  in  but  one 
thing — perpetual  international  war  until  one  nation 
establishes  its  temporary  claim  to  universal  sov¬ 
ereignty  only  to  go  down  again  before  some  su¬ 
perior  power,  or  else  civilisation  and  the  whole 
world  order  are  irretrievably  wrecked.  Since 
the  birth  of  the  modern  nation  in  the  Middle 
Ages,  almost  all  our  wars  have  been  instigated 
and  inspired  by  that  philosophy  and  spirit  of  an 
overdone  nationalism. 

After  the  primitive  intertribal  conflicts,  the 
first  great  wars  were  dynastic,  arising  out  of  the 
ambition  of  conquerors  to  establish  their  family 
trees  upon  thrones  of  partial  or  universal  empire. 
Then  came  the  period  of  religious  wars,  when 
groups  contended  “for  the  faith  once  delivered  to 
the  saints”  as  each  group  conceived  that  faith. 
Then  followed  the  era  of  nationalistic  wars,  the 
struggle  of  conflicting  jealousies,  hatreds  and 
ambitions  of  sovereign  states,  notably  in  the 
Thirty  Years’  War  which  all  but  wrecked  civ- 


BETWEEN  THE  NATIONS 


95 


ilisation  and  reduced  Europe  to  barbarism,  cul¬ 
minating  in  the  recent  World  War  which  has  had 
the  same  result  on  an  even  larger  scale. 

And  behind  this  fierce  irrational  nationalism 
lurks,  to-day,  a  still  more  sinister  force  which 
often  camouflages  itself  under  the  guise  of 
patriotism  and  uses  the  old  nationalism  as  its 
propaganda.  And  that  is  the  rivalries  of  com¬ 
mercial  groups  in  the  various  peoples  and  coun¬ 
tries.  Commercial  greed  is  the  real  inspiring 
cause  of  most  modern  wars,  though  they  justify 
themselves  to  the  common  people  in  the  high- 
sounding  phrases  of  national  honor  and  patriot¬ 
ism;  it  is  the  desire  for  sources  of  raw  material 
and  market  for  finished  goods,  for  colonies  which 
shall  furnish  vast,  natural  resources  and  masses 
of  that  other  most  valuable  commodity,  cheap 
human  labour.  And  so  while  our  boys  were  dying 
on  the  high  places  of  the  field  in  a  noble  war  to 
end  all  war,  and  make  the  world  safe  for  de¬ 
mocracy  and  secure  in  it  permanent  peace,  the 
politicians  and  diplomats  around  the  council  table 
were  with  one  hand  playing  the  game  of  secret 
treaties  whose  prizes  are  oil  wells  and  coal  fields, 
while  with  the  other  they  ostentatiously  waved 
the  banners  of  high  ideals.  The  recently  pub¬ 
lished  Crane-King  report,  so  long  suppressed, 
exposes  such  a  situation,  if  indeed  it  needed  to  be 
exposed.  It  is  becoming  the  common  knowledge 
of  the  common  people.  And  that  is  our  best 


96  THE  gospel  of  fellowship 

ground  for  the  hope  of  ending  war  to-day. 

And  there  is  another,  not  often  taken  account 
of,  that  war  is  not, only  a  crime  to-day,  the  su¬ 
preme  crime,  but  it  has  become  an  anachronism, 
for  its  chief  cause,  the  narrow,  bigoted,  divisive 
nationalism  of  the  past,  has  no  longer  a  function 
to  serve  or  an  excuse  for  existence.  Like  the 
vermiform  appendix  in  the  human  body,  it  is  a 
belated  survival,  it  has  outlived  its  original  pur¬ 
pose  and  service  and  needs  a  surgical  operation  to 
cut  it  out.  The  simple  truth  is  that  politics  has 
lagged  behind  all  other  human  interests  and  re¬ 
lationships  with  the  rapid  development  of  inter¬ 
course,  inter-communication  and  transportation 
between  lands,  peoples,  labour,  trade,  finance,  com¬ 
merce,  science,  literature,  religion, — all  the  great 
interests  and  activities  of  the  human  race  have  be¬ 
come  ideally  and  practically  international.  They 
know  or  recognise  no  boundaries  whatsoever. 
Neither  seas,  mountains,  races,  languages,  can 
contain  them;  least  of  all  those  artificial,  invisible 
lines  laid  down  upon  the  maps  between  people  and 
people.  Only  politics  maintains  the  fundamen¬ 
tally  unreal  divisions  and  fosters  the  irrational 
prejudice  and  antagonism  between  peoples  and 
peoples  of  the  one  human  family. 

And  politics  must  quicken  its  lagging  pace,  join 
in  procession  and  face  the  demand  of  the  times 
and  the  logic  of  history,  a  real  internationalism. 

Steam  and  electricity,  finance  and  trade,  are 


BETWEEN  THE  NATIONS 


97 


forcing  the  nations  closer  and  closer  together. 
But  unless  we  have  a  mitigation  of  our  bitter  na¬ 
tionalistic  prejudice  and  our  bigoted  patriotism, 
that  means  disaster. 

War — war — war,  tribal  wars,  dynastic  wars, 
religious  wars,  nationalistic  wars,  and  now  most 
degraded  of  all,  commercial  wars,  masquerad¬ 
ing  under  the  shining  garb  of  patriotism,  a  devil 
clothed  like  an  angel  of  light — these  have  been 
the  supreme  curse  of  the  race  since  human  history 
began.  It  is  estimated  that  from  1496  B.  C.  to 
1861  A.  D.,  out  of  the  335 7  years,  there  were 
3130  years  of  war  and  227  years  of  peace,  that 
is  thirteen  years  of  war  to  one  year  of  peace. 
And  the  time  since  has  not  bettered  the  propor¬ 
tion  much,  if  any. 

A  warless  world,  how  passionately  the  great 
heart  of  common  humanity  has  yearned  for  it  in 
all  ages,  the  most  persistent  hope  against  hope  of 
the  great  masses  who  never  got  anything  out  of 
war  but  misery,  bereavement  and  death!  How 
it  burns  in  the  souls  of  the  Hebrew  prophets, — 
Isaiah  who  makes  a  huge  bonfire  of  all  the  arma¬ 
ments  and  war-like  equipment  of  his  day  in  an¬ 
ticipation  of  the  birth  of  the  Prince  of  Peace  upon 
whose  shoulder  shall  J>e  the  government  of  the 
people;  and  Isaiah  and  Micah  alike,  perhaps 
both  expressing  the  common  longing  of  their 
day,  in  their  vision  of  the  time  when  nation 
should  not  lift  up  sword  against  nation,  neither 


98  the  gospel  of  fellowship 


learn  war  any  more;  when  the  lion  should  lie 
down  with  the  lamb  and  a  little  child  lead  them ; 
when  the  earth  should  be  full  of  the  knowledge 
of  the  Lord  as  the  waters  cover  the  sea!  How 
that  hope  leaps  to  the  fulness  and  perfection  of 
its  glory  in  Jesus’  commanding  ideal  of  a  King¬ 
dom  of  Heaven  upon  earth,  a  celestial  civilisation 
in  this  present  world,  when  the  will  of  God 
should  be  done  by  men  below  even  as  it  is  by 
angels  above!  How  it  sings  in  the  souls  of  the 
great  race  religions,  Persian,  Chinese  and  Hin¬ 
du  !  How  it  has  enkindled  the  great  souls  of  all 
peoples,  even  the  pre-Christians,  Homer,  Euripi¬ 
des,  Aristophanes,  Aeschylus,  Plutarch,  and 
Zeno  among  the  Greeks,  Plato  in  his  T imceus  and 
Critias,  his  picture  of  the  world  state  in  Atlantis , 
the  stories  among  the  philosophers;  Ovid,  Lu¬ 
cretius,  Virgil,  Probus,  Cicero,  Tacitus,  Marcus 
Aurelius  among  the  Latins!  How  it  flames  out 
in  the  hearts  of  the  Church  fathers  and  later  in 
Augustine’s  City  of  God ,  Thomas  Aquinas’  relig¬ 
ious  philosophy,  poets  like  Dante  in  his  DeMon~ 
archia,  ecclesiastics  like  Marsiglius  of  Padua  and 
Peter  DuBois,  scholars  like  Erasmus!  How  re^ 
ligious  sects  have  made  it  the  central  principle  of 
their  doctrine  like  the  Mennonites  and  the  Ouak- 
ers  and  the  Doukohbor!  When  the  modern  na¬ 
tions  first  came  into  conscious  existence  there 
arose  that  great  line  of  statesmen  and  Jesuits, 
working  when  it  was  darkest,  long  before  the 


BETWEEN  THE  NATIONS 


99 


dawn,  insisting  that  underneath  the  perpetual 
strife  of  independent  and  clashing  state  sover¬ 
eignty  there  was  already  in  the  ideal  realm  a 
natural  and  God-established  “family  of  nations” 
which  could  express  and  realise  itself  on  a  man- 
established  “society  of  nations.”  These  were  the 
fathers  of  the  new  science  of  international  law, 
the  jus  gentium  or  natural  law  of  humanity  and 
the  jus  intergentes,  the  positive  law  of  human 
society.  They  were  Roman  Catholics,  Protes¬ 
tants,  Jews,  those  of  no  professed  faith,  out  of 
every  nation  under  heaven.  Legano  and  Belli 
and  Gentilis,  among  the  Italians,  Bruno  the  Ger¬ 
man,  Vittoria,  Ayala  and  Suarezi,  Spaniards  and 
the  last  a  Jesuit. 

And  the  line  culminates  in  the  chief  of  them 
all,  Grotius,  the  great  Dutchman,  disowned,  im¬ 
prisoned  and  exiled  by  his  own  people,  toiling 
amidst  the  havoc  of  the  Thirty  Years*  War  with 
its  consequent  relapse  into  barbarism  of  a  large 
part  of  Europe,  when  no  ray  of  promise  was 
visible  anywhere,  yet  with  sweet,  gentle  but  in¬ 
domitable  spirit,  refusing  tO'  abate  his  hope  one 
jot.  The  jus  gentium  or  natural  law  of  humanity 
should  find  its  expression  in  the  jus  intergentes  or 
the  positive  enactments  and  statutes  of  the  peo¬ 
ples,  and  bring  in  the  mitigation  of  war  and  the 
approach  toward  permanent  peace. 

And  behind  these  outstanding  individual  voices 
of  great  souls  we  can  hear  everywhere  and  al- 


IOO 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


ways  like  a  deep,  sad  undertone,  a  vast  accom¬ 
panying  chorus,  the  passionate  but  almost  hope¬ 
less  yearning  of  the  common  masses.  So  the 
song  of  peace,  or,  rather,  the  prayer  for  peace, 
has  come  down  the  ages.  Is  there  any  hope  for 
its  answer  ?  I  believe  there  is  to-day,  dark  as  the 
immediate  outlook  is  with  poor,  crazed  France 
and  sullen  Germany,  the  insolent  Turk,  the  mad 
Russian,  and  the  group  of  petty,  little,  jealous 
nationalities  threatening  the  world’s  precarious 
peace  on  every  side.  I  believe  there  is  because  the 
hopes  of  the  few  have  become  the  passionate 
determination  of  the  many,  particularly  the  toil¬ 
ing  masses  called  labour  among  many  peoples. 
Labour  is  acquiring  new  power  among  all  na¬ 
tions,  and  it  is  determined  to  use  that  power  to 
enforce  peace  if  possible. 

Much  had  been  gained  in  the  region  of  inter¬ 
national  law  and  agreement  up  to  the  outbreak 
of  the  late  war  when  Germany,  for  the  moment, 
seemed  to  shatter  the  whole  painfully  wrought 
structure  to  its  very  foundations.  But  much  re¬ 
mains  upon  which  to  build  anew. 

Certain  fundamental  principles  of  right  and 
justice  as  to  international  relations,  both  in  war 
and  peace,  had  been  admitted  by  the  leading  civ¬ 
ilised  states.  A  real  international  law  had  begun 
to  develop.  Pro-treaty-making  conferences  had 
been  seized  and  made  to  establish  certain  con¬ 
ventions  between  all  states.  Then  the  nations 


BETWEEN  THE  NATIONS 


IOI 


had  come  to  see  that  it  was  possible  to  limit  state 
sovereignty  in  the  interests  of  the  common  weal 
without  committing  state  suicide.  Though  there 
were  conventions  and  certain  treaties,  the  prin¬ 
ciples  of  arbitration,  the  substitution  of  the  ar¬ 
bitrament  of  reason  and  law  for  the  arbitrament 
of  force,  were  established.  It  has  had  a  re¬ 
markable  growth,  far  greater  than  the  ordinary 
man  or  even  the  ordinary  student  of  history  and 
international  affairs  realises.  Then  there  have 
been  great  voluntary  assemblies  of  representatives 
from  all  nations,  not  occasional  before  the  con¬ 
clusion  of  a  war  and  the  making  of  a  treaty  but 
summoned  for  the  specific  purpose,  which  estab¬ 
lished  rules  for  the  mitigation  of  the  horrors  of 
wars,  the  treatment  of  the  wounded  and  sick, 
and  of  prisoners,  the  establishment  of  the  inter¬ 
national  Red  Cross,  etc.  Then  came  the  two 
Hague  conferences,  the  first  voluntary  associa¬ 
tion  of  nations  for  the  purposes  of  peace  since  the 
association  of  the  Greek  city  states  in  the  Achaean 
League.  The  list  of  actual  accomplishments  of 
the  two  conferences  may  seem  comparatively 
meagre  but  it  established  the  principles  of  a  vol¬ 
untary  association  of  the  nations  for  the  purposes 
of  peace,  strengthened  respect  for  international 
law,  made  rules  for  the  more  human  conduct  of 
war  (if  war  can  ever  be  human)  and  gave  prom¬ 
ise  of  a  permanent  judicial  tribunal  before  which 
nations  should  place  their  causes  and  adjust  their 


102 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


differences.  Apparently  the  first  blow  of  Ger¬ 
many’s  mailed  fist  shattered  the  whole  achieve¬ 
ment.  The  rules  of  warfare  so  carefully  estab^ 
lished  were  largely  ignored  first  by  Germany  and 
then  perforce  by  the  other  side  and  the  hope  of 
an  international  tribunal  seemed  to  vanish  into 
thin  air.  But  out  of  the  wreckage  of  the  war, 
born  in  its  travail  pangs,  has  emerged  the  great¬ 
est  possibility  and  promise  for  the  fulfilment  of 
the  world’s  age-long  hope  history  has  ever  known, 
the  League  of  Nations. 

I  am  not  here  to  define  or  defend  every  detail 
of  the  present  plan  of  the  League.  It  is  a  first 
attempt  to  put  into  concrete,  workable  form  a 
supreme  ideal,  and  of  course  first  plans  are  always 
tentative  and  amendable.  But  I  am  here  to  say, 
with  all  the  force  I  can  put  into  the  statement, 
that  this  League  of  Nations  is  the  greatest  op¬ 
portunity  ever  offered  in  human  history  to  take 
the  longest  stride  ever  taken  towards  that  con¬ 
summation  for  which  the  ages  have  been  waiting 
and  a  war-cursed  humanity  has  been  travailing 
in  agony  even  until  now,  the  Christian  hope  and 
promise,  “peace  on  earth,  goodwill  among  men.” 

And  it  is  the  present  humiliation  of  all  true 
and  intelligent  Americans — will  be  the  shame  of 
all  future  Americans  who  shall  read  the  history 
of  this  day — that  our  own  nation  has  been  chiefly 
responsible — not  for  the  waiting  of  that  hope — 
for  it  cannot  be  thwarted — it  is  God’s  purpose 


BETWEEN  THE  NATIONS 


IO3 


and  shall  be  accomplished — but  for  its  unnecessary 
delay.  We,  more  than  any  other  people,  have 
hampered  the  efficiency  of  the  new  machinery 
and  withheld  the  dynamic,  the  power  which  we, 
above  all  others,  could  have  given.  We  have 
chosen  to  stay  outside  the  “concert  of  the  nations’' 
in  the  strange  and  discordant  company  of  Soviet 
Russia,  barbarous  Turkey  and  excluded  Germany. 
Put  the  blame  where  you  will,  on  the  alleged 
narrow-mindedness  of  the  obstinate  proponent 
who  could  not  take  counsel  with  others  (a  piti¬ 
fully  small  excuse  for  a  supreme  sin  of  omission) 
or,  where  I  believe  it  more  truly  belongs,  on  the 
pitiful,  pettifogging  politics  of  the  day,  the  jeal¬ 
ousies  and  hatreds  of  partisanship  and  personal 
antagonisms,  the  fact  remains,  America,  like 
Simon  Peter,  stands  by  the  fire  and  warms  herself 
while  the  world’s  great  tragedy  goes  on.  Once 
in  a  while  we  will  open  the  door  a  crack  and 
throw  out  a  sop  of  charity  to  appease  the  clamour, 
but  we  will  not  take  our  place  in  the  family  of 
nations.  We  prefer  to  hug  our  exclusive  privi¬ 
leges  and  prosperity. 

But  in  spite  of  our  dereliction  the  League  has 
gone  on.  None  who  have  not  studied  its  record 
seem  to  realise  the  great  and  efficient  work  it  has 
done,  seriously  crippled  as  it  is  by  the  non-par¬ 
ticipation  of  the  strongest  nation  on  the  earth  to¬ 
day.  It  has  stopped  incipient  wars.  It  has  set¬ 
tled  vexed  questions  that  might  have  caused 


104 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


armed  conflict.  It  has  dealt  successfully  with! 
international  labour  questions.  (Perhaps  there  is 
our  chief  rub.  We  Americans  do  not  want  labour 
questions  touched  by  any  save  our  autocratic 
employing  classes.)  It  is  constantly  at  work  on 
such  great  burning  moral  and  social  problems  as 
the  international  white  slave,  opium  and  drug 
traffic.  And  its  correspondence  and  inquiries  on 
these  subjects  have  often,  if  not  generally,  been 
ignored  and  unanswered  by  our  State  Depart¬ 
ment  lest  we  be  implicated  in  some  fashion  in 
that  dreadful  League!  Such  in  barest  outline  is 
the  record  of  accomplishment  of  the  present 
League  of  Nations,  handicapped  as  it  is  by  our 
rejection  and  beset  by  the  nervous  prostrations 
of  all  Europe  in  the  poisonous  aftermath  of  the 
war. 

But  let  us  turn,  in  closing,  from  this  League 
to  the  consideration  of  the  league  idea  in  gen¬ 
eral.  Will  any  league  be  effective?  Is,  indeed, 
any  league  possible? 

The  stock  objections  are  familiar.  I  can  touch 
on  only  a  few  of  the  most  salient  and  frequently 
offered. 

Any  league,  any  concert  of  nations,  is  plumb 
against  human  nature,  and  human  nature  cannot 
be  changed.  Men  are  fighting  animals.  It  is  an 
ineradicable  instinct  of  human  nature  to  settle 
things  by  force.  Individuals,  nations,  races,  have 
always  fought,  and  always  will  fight.  To  op- 


BETWEEN  THE  NATIONS 


105 


pose  that  instinct  is  like  opposing  a  law  of  nature, 
you  can  only  smash  yourself  in  the  collision.  To 
attempt  to  substitute  arbitration,  or  the  common 
judgment  of  courts  or  leagues  in  the  settlement 
of  disputes  between  nations,  is  like  attempting 
to  substitute  levitation  for  gravitation  in  the  realm 
of  physics.  It  can’t  be  done. 

I  should  like  to  suggest  that  man  is  a  reason¬ 
ing  animal  as  well  as  a  fighting  animal,  and  his 
progress  in  individual  as  well  as  social  develop¬ 
ment  has  been  marked  and  measured  exactly  by 
his  substitution  of  reason  for  brute  force.  Can 
it  not  be  done  in  internationalisms  as  it  has  been 
so  largely  done  in  all  the  other  relations  of 
humanity?  And  that  human  nature  cannot  be 
changed,  is  a  flat  denial  of  our  deepest  faith,  our 
religion.  It  is  the  fundamental  postulate  of 
Christianity  that  human  nature  can  be  changed, 
transformed,  regenerated,  reborn,  made  new. 
That  is  what  conversion  means.  And  conversion 
is  a  proved  fact  with  a  long  record  of  innumer¬ 
able  instances.  “Ah!”  but  the  objector  replies, 
“that  may  be  true  with  individuals  but  not  with 
nations.  You  cannot  correct  or  change  the  hu¬ 
man  nature  of  nations  whatever  you  may  do  with 
individuals.  Therefore  your  only  method 
is  to  regenerate  all  individuals  one  by  one  and 
when  that  is  achieved,  when  every  man,  woman 
and  child  is  a  real  genuine  Christian,  then  we 
shall  have  peace  between  all,  but  not  until  then.” 


io6 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


But  there  are  multitudinous  instances  of  whole¬ 
sale  conversion  through  the  steady  pressure  of  a 
changed  environment  as  well  as  of  individual 
conversion  through  the  inward  operations  of  the 
spirit  Look  at  civilisation  itself  with  its  sub¬ 
stitution  of  law-courts,  police,  in  place  of  brute 
force  for  the  settlement  of  all  differences  between 
individuals,  groups  or  corporations.  Once  all 
disputes  were  settled  by  physical  strength.  It 
was  not  so  long  ago'  when  a  point  of  honour  be¬ 
tween  gentlemen  could  be  satisfied  only  by  pis¬ 
tols  and  coffee  for  two.  Now  such  things  are 
practically  unknown  in  civilised  society.  A  fight 
is  so  rare  that  it  produces  headlines.  Reason  and 
law  have  almost  universally  taken  the  place  of 
brute  force  inside  all  civilised  nations.  Can  they 
not  reign  and  is  it  not  high  time  they  did  reign 
between  nations?  The  first  proponent  of  law, 
police  and  courts  to  settle  disputes  between  indi¬ 
viduals  doubtless  met  the  same  objection,  “You 
cannot  change  human  nature.”  But  it  has  been 
done  in  the  one  region,  and  it  can  be  done  in  the 
other. 

But  a  league  would  mean  the  limitation  of 
national  sovereignty,  and  the  limitation  of  such 
sovereignty  is  equivalent  to  state  suicide.  It  is 
fundamentally  distinctive  of  the  very  idea  and 
existence  of  a  nation.  Yet  we  all  surrender  some 
portion  of  our  personal  sovereignty  by  submitting 
to  law  and  courts,  and  we  feel  no  invasion  of 


BETWEEN  THE  NATIONS 


107 


our  personality  therein.  The  vast  majority  of 
us  are  most  thankful  and  make  that  surrender 
because  of  the  immense  gain  of  security  and  op¬ 
portunities  for  self-expression  and  self-develop¬ 
ment  in  all  other  ways.  We  have  not  to  spend 
all  our  energies  and  thought  on  the  defence  of  our 
rights  or  the  preservation  of  our  lives.  The  al¬ 
ternative  is  unthinkable, — the  return  to  the  rule  of 
the  biggest  bully  with  the  strongest  fist  and 
weightiest  club.  We  are  still  in  almost  exactly 
that  state  of  savagery  in  our  international  rela¬ 
tions.  It  is,  at  least  according  to  the  German, 
and  indeed  the  commonly  accepted  philosophy 
of  international  relations,  it  is  still  the  biggest 
bully  among  the  nations  with  the  strongest 
mailed  fist  and  weightiest  armaments  who1  will 
and  ought  to  dominate.  What  opportunity 
for  national  self-expression  and  development 
would  be  open  to  every  people  by  the  substi¬ 
tution  of  law  for  force,  even  to  the  United 
States  which  now  spends  ninety-three  cents  out 
of  every  dollar  of  taxes  on  wars,  past,  present 
and  future! 

We  recognise  that  no  individual  can  be  en¬ 
trusted  with  the  right  to  decide  absolutely  as  to 
the  merits  of  his  own  claims  in  any  controversy. 
He  must  submit  to  the  disinterested  judgment  of 
his  peers.  Us  a  nation,  far  more  egotistic,  ir¬ 
rational,  and  purely  instinctive  in  its  thought  and 
action,  to  be  more  trusted  in  such  matters  than 


108  THE  gospel  of  fellowship 

an  individual?  Can  it  judge  fairly  and  justly  as 
to  its  cause,  especially  in  times  of  popular  hys¬ 
teria  and  under  the  sway  of  demagoguery  and 
propaganda  than  an  individual?  Should  it  not 
also  submit  that  cause  to  the  disinterested  judg¬ 
ment  of  its  peers? 

But  how  shall  such  judgments  have  sanction, 
how  shall  they  be  enforced?  The  method  of 
economic  pressure  suggests  itself  at  once.  In 
these  days  of  absolute  interdependence  in  finance, 
trade,  commerce  and  every  other  common  hu¬ 
man  interest  and  activity,  such  means  would  be 
enormously  effective.  And  no  nation,  however 
strong,  would  dare  attack  a  neighbor  if  the 
massed  judgment  and  massed  power  of  all  the 
other  nations  stood  against  it. 

For  I  believe  in  the  use  of  force,  but  force  of 
the  right  sort  and  for  right  ends.  Let  me  quote 
Krehbiel’s  admirable  statement:  “Martial  force 
is  exercised  by  the  interested  party  in  his  own 
behalf;  it  is  competitive  and  seeks  to  impose  its 
own  will,  which  it  identifies  with  the  right,  upon 
its  adversary  by  violence  if  necessary.” 

Police  force  is  not  exercised  by  the  interested 
parties  to  the  dispute,  but  is  force  exercised  by 
the  agents  of  a  co-operating  society.  Its  function 
is,  not  to  help  one  of  the  disputants  to  impose  his 
conception  of  right  on  the  other  (as  was  the 
case  in  the  old  alliances  for  the  balance  of  power) , 


BETWEEN  THE  NATIONS 


109 

but  to  see  that  each  is  protected  against  the  other 
and  that  both  are  obedient  to  society. 

War  is  the  condition  which  exists  when  social 
groups,  known  as  nations,  employ  martial  force. 
Obviously  one  may  be  opposed  to  war  and  yet 
sanction  other  kinds  of  force.  Militarism  is  the 
religion  of  martial  force.  Pacifism  repudiates 
martial  force  (and  martial  force  only)  and  de¬ 
mands  the  extension  of  police  force.  It  is  not 
content  to  pronounce  peace  desirable  but  approves 
its  sincerity  by  labouring  for  conditions,  which, 
according  to  its  lights,  make  for  peace. 

In  that  sense,  and  that  sense  only,  I  am  a  con¬ 
vinced  pacifist,  but  one  who  would  not  only  talk 
and  labour  for  peace,  but  fight  for  peace  if  neces¬ 
sary.  And  if  we  had  a  world  police  force  in¬ 
stead  of  innumerable  national  military  forces  we 
should  have  little  fighting  to  do. 

And,  lastly,  any  league  means  eventually  a 
world  super-state.  Well!  I  am  not  excessively 
frightened  by  even  that  bugaboo.  A  United 
States  of  Europe  or  even  a  United  States  of  the 
World,  is  a  far  more  tolerable  prospect  than  the 
present  universal  anarchy  of  utterly  independent 
and  often  antagonistic  nations.  It  is  possible. 
We  have  proved  that  federations  can  be  made. 
The  Swiss  Federation  of  various  languages;  the 
United  States  composing  thirteen  most  quarrel¬ 
some  colonies  into  one  great  union  with  nice  dis- 


no 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


criminations  between  States  Rights  and  Federal 
Powers,  and  above  all  what  used  to  be  called  the 
British  Empire,  but  now  is  popularly  termed 
“the  federation  or  league  of  British  democracy,” 
each  with  as  independent  a  state  sovereignty  as 
any  nation,  but  held  together  by  a  bond  of  loy¬ 
alty  stronger  than  any  external  or  legal  bond. 
Germany  thought  that  association  a  house  of 
cards,  doomed  to  fall  at  the  first  breath  of  war, 
because,  as  Bismarck  said,  “Germany  could  never 
evaluate  the  imponderables.”  But  when  Germany 
struck  that  house  of  cards,  she  found  it  a  veri¬ 
table  rock  of  Gibraltar. 

May  we  not  hope  that  such  “imponderables” 
may  one  day  bring  the  day  when  “the  war  drums 
throb  no  longer  and  the  battle  flags  are  furled,  in 
the  parliament  of  nations,  the  federation  of  the 
world.”  But  I  do  not  look  forward  to  a  super¬ 
state.  That  would  be  a  return  towards  man  or¬ 
ganisations  of  the  early  world  empires.  Rather 
do  I  hope  for  and  confidently  expect  a  new  fel¬ 
lowship  among  the  nations. 

This  fellowship  shall  sacrifice  and  oblit¬ 
erate  none  of  the  individual  kultur,  ideals,  or  tra¬ 
ditions  of  the  separate  nations  but  rather  cherish 
and  develop  them,  and  unite  them  in  the  common 
weal  and  service  of  all,  in  which  none  shall  be 
called  to  surrender,  give  up,  any  of  the  things  it 
counts  precious  or  are  of  any  real  value,  but  con¬ 
tribute  them  to  the  common  fund  of  the  common- 


BETWEEN  THE  NATIONS 


III 


wealth.  The  best  and  most  loyal  citizen  of  any 
city  is  he  who  loves  and  cultivates  most  diligently 
his  own  home  and  family  life,  indeed  loves  and 
cultivates  them  after  such  a  fashion  that  they 
never  feel  the  touch  of  the  law  or  suffer  in¬ 
vasion  by  the  police-power  of  the  community. 
He  has  the  largest  stake  in  the  community  and 
will  be  most  zealous  and  devoted  to  its  mainte¬ 
nance  and  defense.  So  I  look  forward  to  a  fel¬ 
lowship  of  the  nations  in  which  each  people  which 
cherishes  and  cultivates  most  earnestly  its  own 
real  national  spirit,  its  own  true  patriotism,  its 
own  best  values  shall  be  at  the  same  time  and  for 
that  very  reason  the  most  loyal  and  zealous  mem¬ 
ber  of  the  common  society  and  family  of  hu¬ 
manity. 

As  Renan  puts  it — pardon  again  my  crude 
translation — “By  their  diverse  gifts  often  op¬ 
posed  the  nations  serve  the  common  cause  of 
civilisation!  Each  sounds  one  note  in  the  great 
concert  of  humanity,  which,  in  the  summing  up, 
is  the  highest  ideal  reality  we  may  attain.  Iso¬ 
lated  from  each  other,  they  play  ineffective  parts. 
They  make  only  jangling  discords.  But  all  their 
dissonances  of  detail  would  disappear  in  the 
grand  ensemble.  Poor  humanity,  what  thou  hast 
suffered,  what  tests  await  thee  still!  May  the 
spirit  of  wisdom  guide  thee  to  save  thee  from  the 
innumerable  dangers  with  which  thy  way  is 
strewn.” 


1 12 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


It  is  a  supreme  function  of  education  and  re¬ 
ligion,  of  the  school  and  the  Church,  to-day,  to 
cultivate  and  inspire  in  our  own  nation  that  spirit 
of  wisdom. 


LECTURE  IV 


FELLOWSHIP  IN  INDUSTRY 

IT  must  be  evident  to  every  thoughtful  ob¬ 
server  of  the  times  we  live  in,  particularly 
if  he  has  an  intelligent  understanding  of 
history,  that  we  face  to-day  one  of  those  secular 
social  movements  which  every  now  and  then 
sweep  through  the  human  world. 

There  was,  for  instance,  such  a  movement  in 
the  Middle  Ages.  Gunpowder  had  unhorsed  the 
knight  and  made  the  impregnable  castles  of  the 
feudal  nobility  of  little  avail.  Printing  had 
spread  knowledge  widely  among  those  who  could 
read.  Armed  with  these  weapons,  physical  and 
spiritual,  the  bourgeoisie,  the  middle  class,  arose, 
destroyed  many  ancient  institutions  and  orders  of 
life,  and  established  its  supremacy  in  the  modern 
world.  Kings,  emperors,  nobility  first  faded 
into  empty  forms  and  shadows  and  now  have 
been  practically  abolished  in  the  world  of  to-day. 
Priests  and  popes  lost  their  unquestioned  au¬ 
thority.  There  is  freedom  of  mind  for  the 
scholar,  the  scientist,  the  investigator,  and  free¬ 
dom  of  conscience  for  everybody.  The  liberty 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


1 14 

of  prophesying  is  unrestrained.  Anybody  can 
preach  any  doctrine,  however  absurd,  and  win 
followers,  provided  only  he  does  not  transgress 
the  law  of  decency  or  the  common  order. 

In  the  economic,  industrial,  and  even  political 
realm,  this  movement  has  made  the  business  man, 
especially  the  successful  business  man,  supreme. 
He  has  hitherto  been  an  unquestioned  autocrat  in 
his  own  business.  He  has  dictated  the  policies  of 
government  and  international  relations.  Trade 
and  commercial  interests  make  war  and  peace. 
The  “invisible  government”  permeates  and  oper¬ 
ates  the  political  machinery  in  every  country. 
“Money  talks”  and  money  decides.  We  have 
gradually  emerged  out  of  political  imperialism 
and  feudalism  into  the  reign  of  the  money  mo¬ 
tive  and  the  money  power.  Even  social  aris¬ 
tocracy  is  to-day  but  the  symbol  of  wealth.  But 
we  have  not  yet  arrived  at  real  democracy.  Our 
present  system  is,  according  to  many,  but  a  thinly- 
veiled  plutocracy.  The  bourgeoisie  rules. 

This  is  the  final  outcome  of  the  social  revolu¬ 
tion  of  the  Middle  Ages.  And,  now,  plainly  a 
new  social  revolution  is  preparing.  There  is  a 
ground-swell  developing,  a  tidal  wave  rising, 
among  the  toiling  masses — the  proletariat,  if  you 
will — the  world  over.  Everywhere  are  indus¬ 
trial  unrest  and  social  discontent.  They  have 
long  been  incubating — through  centuries.  But 
they  have  been  enormously  stimulated  by  the 


FELLOWSHIP  IN  INDUSTRY 


115 

experience  of  the  recent  World  War  and  its  con¬ 
sequences.  The  long-cherished  hopes  of  the 
masses  were  first  raised  to  a  supreme,  if  not 
fanatical,  pitch  by  the  declaration  of  the  moral 
ends  and  ideals  of  the  war,  on  the  one  hand,  as 
set  forth  by  true  statesmen  and  prophets  of  wide 
vision,  and  on  the  other  as  skilfully  used  by  in¬ 
sincere  politicians,  demagogues  and  propagan¬ 
dists  to  fan  the  fighting  spirit  into  flame. 

President  Wilson,  with  his  Fourteen  Points,  be¬ 
came,  to  the  masses  of  Europe,  at  least,  the  Moses 
who  was  to  lead  them  out  of  their  forty  centuries’ 
wandering  in  the  wilderness,  if  not  the  Messiah 
who  was  to  usher  in  the  new  day  of  the  Lord 
and  set  up  the  kingdom  of  heaven  upon  earth. 
This  was  the  war  that  was  to  end  all  war;  it 
was  to  make  the  world  safe  for  democracy — de¬ 
mocracy  everywhere,  in  the  industrial  as  well  as 
the  political  realm.  The  League  of  Nations  was 
to  substitute  the  arbitrament  of  reason  for  the 
arbitrament  of  force,  not  only  in  the  political 
disputes  between  nations,  but  also  in  the  indus¬ 
trial  and  economic  disputes  between  classes  in 
every  nation.  Great  hopes  were  staked  upon  its 
department  of  labour.  The  League  of  Nations 
should  establish  peace  on  earth,  good-will  among 
men,  of  all  nations  and  all  classes.  Such  were 
the  hopes  of  the  masses.  They  mounted  on 
eagles’  wings. 

Then  came  the  crash  of  the  great  disillusion- 


n6  the  gospel  of  fellowship 

ment.  'A  treaty  was  made,  under  the  manipula¬ 
tions  of  the  wily  diplomatists,  the  three-card 
monte  men  of  the  ancient  regime,  which  em¬ 
bodied  all  the  supposedly  discarded  motives  and 
methods  of  the  past — commercial  greeds,  inter¬ 
national  hatreds  and  jealousies,  and  the  doctrine 
that  “to  the  victor  belong  the  spoils.”  It  can 
ensure  but  one  thing — not  permanent  peace,  but 
perpetual  war.  The  unforgivable  crime  of  Ger¬ 
many  was  the  starting  of  the  war.  The  unpar¬ 
donable  sin  of  the  Allies  was  the  breaking  of 
their  pledged  word  and  the  imposition  of  a  per¬ 
fidious  treaty,  and  the  two  are  about  equal  in 
guilt. 

Then  came  the  poisonous  aftermath  of  the 
war,  with  its  hideous  suffering  and  semi-starva¬ 
tion  among  most  of  the  peoples  involved,  and  the 
universal  cynicism  and  despair  among  all.  This 
experience  has  deepened,  intensified,  and  embit¬ 
tered  the  prevailing  industrial  unrest  and  social 
discontent  the  world  over. 

And,  to-day,  these  forces  are  armed  with 
weapons  newly- forged  among  many  peoples,  dur¬ 
ing  the  nineteenth  and  twentieth  centuries — the 
widening,  if  not  deepening,  of  popular  education, 
the  ballot  in  the  hands  of  practically  all  through 
universal  suffrage,  the  rapid  growth  and  strength¬ 
ening  of  labour  organisation  everywhere,  the  de¬ 
veloping  sense  of  increasing  power  in  the  hands 
of  the  masses.  Such  is  the  situation  we  face 


FELLOWSHIP  IN  INDUSTRY 


ii  7 

to-day  everywhere  in  the  realm  of  industrial  and 
social  relations. 

Positively  the  most  dangerous  element  in  such 
a  situation  is  the  ultra-conservative,  the  Bourbon 
reactionary,  who  knows  no  methods  of  meeting 
it  save  the  ancient  and  oft-discredited  method  of 
mere  repression  and  suppression.  He  simply 
puts  weights  on  the  safety-valves  just  when  the 
hottest  fires  are  being  kindled  under  the  boilers, 
and  then  is  amazed  and  outraged  at  the  ensuing 
and  inevitable  explosion.  He  sits  firmly  on  the 
lid  till  he  is  blown  up  and  then  wonders  what  has 
happened  and  why  it  happened  ?  He  turns  vague 
unrest  and  discontent  into  rabid  radicalism  and 
produces  revolution.  And  we  have  possibly  more 
than  our  proportionate  share  of  such  ultra-con¬ 
servatives  and  Bourbon  reactionaries  in  America, 
— for  America,  in  spite  of  her  progressive  spirit  in 
material  achievement,  is  one  of  the  most  back¬ 
ward  of  nations  in  social  adjustment  and  reform. 

A  brilliant  English  writer  has  remarked  that 
the  average  Englishman  is  perfectly  aware  that  he 
faces,  to-day,  a  changing  order.  He  only  hopes 
that  the  present  system  may  last  his  life-time. 
But  the  average  American  is  unaware  that  the 
present  order  of  things  can  change  in  the  slightest 
degree.  To  him  it  is  as  Divine,  eternal,  un- 
amendable  and  unchangeable  as  the  solar  system. 
And  let  me  add  that  the  English  with  their  char¬ 
acteristic  pragmatism  and  common  sense,  ration- 


Il8  THE  gospel  of  fellowship 

alise  radicalism,  and  with  their  genius  for  com¬ 
promise  and  adjustment  are  apt  to  turn  the  de¬ 
structive  torrents  of  revolution  into  the  orderly 
channels  of  social  and  industrial  evolution.  And 
that  is  true  conservatism.  The  Bourbon  en¬ 
dangers  the  rights  he  holds  most  dear,  particularly 
the  paramount  and  sacrosanct  right  of  private 
property  simply  by  damming  up  the  popular  dis¬ 
content  and  unrest  until  they  break  out  in  devas¬ 
tating  floods. 

The  sane  liberal,  the  true  progressive,  the 
reasonable  reformer,  digs  sluices  for  those  pent- 
up  forces  and  directs  them  to  the  more  efficient 
irrigation  of  the  fields  of  commonweal  and  the 
driving  of  the  wheels  of  production.  But  the 
critical  and  indeed  crucial  situation  which  con¬ 
fronts  us  demands  something  more  than  compro¬ 
mise  and  adjustment,  which  are  all  that  most 
sane  liberals,  reasonable  reformers  and  rational 
progressives  can  give  us.  Some  who  pose  as  such 
are  mere  social  quacks — “healing  the  breach  of 
the  daughters  of  my  people  lightly,  crying  ‘peace, 
peace’  when  there  is  no  peace,”  and  can  be  no 
peace  until  all  fundamental  unrighteousness  is 
reached  and  righted.  They  treat  the  surfaces  of 
our  several  disorders  with  salves  and  emollients. 
They  do  not  diagnose  the  disease.  We  need  to¬ 
day  real  and  rational  radicals,  and  by  that  phrase 
I  mean  not  single-tracked  enthusiasts  and  fa¬ 
natics,  obsessed  with  the  logic  of  their  academic 


FELLOWSHIP  IN  INDUSTRY 


119 

theories,  but  patient  and  wise  students  and  in¬ 
vestigators  who  shall  probe  to  the  roots  of  our 
popular  discontent  and  unrest,  discover  their 
final  causes  and  devise  boldly  effective  remedies, 
cost  what  they  may. 

Now,  I  hold  no  diploma  as  a  social  diagnos¬ 
tician.  I  do  not  claim  to  be  an  expert  either  in 
sociology  or  economics  (though  the  present  oc¬ 
casion  gives  me  the  opportunity  and  the  tempta¬ 
tion  to  pose  as  such,  for  an  expert  has  been 
defined  as  an  ordinary  man  away  from  home), 
but  there  are  certain  things  which  are  plain  to 
the  simplest  and  most  amateur  observer.  Among 
these  is  the  fact  that  the  root-cause,  I  may  say 
the  tap-root  cause,  of  all  social  unrest  is  the 
glaring  inequalities  and  iniquities  of  the  present 
distribution  of  wealth,  the  product  of  human  in¬ 
dustry. 

Consider  a  few  statistics  from  a  survey  of  our 
own  favoured  land,  where  the  masses  are  still 
probably  better  off  than  in  any  other  country.  As 
to  property,  one  hundred  and  eighty  men  own 
one-quarter  of  the  wealth  of  America  (Newell  L. 
Sims’  “Ultimate  Democracy”).  Two  per  cent 
of  the  population  possess  about  sixty  per  cent 
of  the  wealth,  while  at  the  bottom  of  the  scale, 
sixty-five  per  cent,  or  the  majority  of  the  popula¬ 
tion,  own  only  five  per  cent  of  the  wealth — that  is, 
two  millions  possess  more  than  the  remaining  one 
hundred  and  more  millions.  Some  individuals 


120 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


have  as  much  as  have  a  thousand  of  the  less  fa¬ 
voured,  some  as  much  as  a  million,  and  some  more 
than  two  millions  (Prof.  King,  University  of 
Wisconsin).  As  to  income — forty-six  per  cent 
of  our  national  income  goes  to  wages,  fifty-three 
per  cent  to  profit,  interest  and  rent.  Only  fifteen 
per  cent  of  the  people  own  any  income-producing 
securities  of  any  sort.  Only  three  per  cent  own 
enough  to  pay  an  income  tax.  Less  than  a 
million  and  a  half  pay  an  income  tax  on  $3,000, 
or  more,  annually.  Twenty-one  million  families 
dividing  the  present  available  income  of  the 
country  would  average  $2,330  each.  But  in 
actual  fact,  152  persons  receive  an  income  of 
over  $1,000,000  a  year;  369  persons  an  annual 
income  of  from  $500,000  to  a  million;  1926, 
from  $200,000  to  $500,000;  4945,  from  $100,000 
to  $200,000;  and  a  total  of  254,000  of  the  rich 
with  incomes  from  $10,000  to  over  a  million  re¬ 
ceive  seven  billions  of  the  total  income  of  the  peo¬ 
ple.  On  the  other  side,  only  842,000,  or  approxi¬ 
mately  three  per  cent,  receive  over  $5,000  a  year; 
twenty-seven  millions,  or  sixty-four  per  cent  of 
the  workers,  receive  less  than  $1,500,  and  four¬ 
teen  millions,  or  thirty-three  per  cent,  receive  less 
than  $1,000  (National  Bureau  of  Research). 
Both  in  Britain  and  America,  one-tenth  of  the 
people  own  nine-tenths  of  the  wealth,  and  nine- 
tenths  of  the  people  own  one-tenth  of  the  wealth. 
Take  the  concentration  of  control.  One  cor- 


FELLOWSHIP  IN  INDUSTRY 


1 21 


poration  monopolizes  a  large  part  of  the  steel 
production,  another  of  the  oil.  Eight  railway 
groups  control  two-thirds  of  the  mileage  of  our 
railroads.  Two  hundred  men  have  most  of  the 
privately  owned  timber  of  America.  About  one 
hundred  families  control  the  railways  and  four¬ 
teen  basic  industries  of  the  country.  One  great 
financial  group  controls  three  hundred  and  forty- 
one  directorates  in  one  hundred  and  twelve  cor¬ 
porations  with  a  capital  of  twenty-two  billions 
(Justice  Brandeis).  During  the  last  twenty- five 
years,  the  large  estates  of  over  a  thousand  acres 
have  grown  from  30,000  to  more  than  50,000, 
while  the  number  of  tenant  farmers  is  steadily 
increasing.  “Latifundia  perdiderunt  Romam,”  * 
wrote  the  ancient  Latin  historian.  Perhaps  a 
future  American  historian  shall  write  the  same 
epitaph  over  the  grave  of  free  and  prosperous 
America. 

These  are  simply  scattered  facts  gathered  al¬ 
most  at  random,  but  from  trustworthy  sources, 
as  to  the  distribution  of  wealth  in  the  most  pros¬ 
perous  country  of  the  world  where,  admittedly, 
the  material  conditions  of  the  masses  are  the  best 
on  earth.  What  must  the  facts  be  among  less 
privileged  peoples? 

Now  clothe  these  dry  bones  of  facts  with  hu¬ 
man  flesh.  Make  these  statistics  move  and  have 

*  Large  estates  destroyed  Rome.  Pliny  the  Elder,  xxix, 
18:6. 


122 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


being  in  terms  of  human  living.  There  are  a 
few  thousand  of  our  people  wallowing  in  luxury 
undreamed  of  since  the  world  began.  There  are 
millions  forever  struggling  on  the  crumbling  edge 
of  bare  existence  and  slipping  over  constantly  in 
unnoticed  numbers.  And,  morally,  these  con¬ 
ditions  are  as  bad  for  one  class  as  for  the  other. 
Unearned  wealth  destroys  initiative,  energy  and 
the  sense  of  moral  responsibility,  as  we  see  so 
frequently  in  the  scions  of  wealthy  families. 
Unstinted  luxury  rots  souls,  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  “the  destruction  of  the  poor  is  his  pov¬ 
erty.” 

What  chance  have  the  60,000  employes  of  the 
Steel  Corporation,  working  twelve  hours  a  day, 
seven  days  a  week,  with  twenty-four  to  thirty- 
six-hour  shifts  every  other  week?  What  chance 
have  such  slaves  of  the  machine  to  be  even  hu¬ 
man?  How  can  you  talk  education  or  preach 
religion  to  such  human  beasts  of  burden?  Mil¬ 
lions  are  denied  practically  all  opportunity  for 
mental  and  spiritual  development  because  their 
whole  thought  and  energy  are  absorbed  in  the 
one  problem  of  keeping  body  and  soul  together. 
The  haunting  spectre  of  ever-recurrent  unem¬ 
ployment  fills  them  with  a  constant  fear  which 
drives  out  all  joy  and  peace  and  makes  it  im¬ 
possible  to  think  of  anything  higher  than  get¬ 
ting  and  keeping  a  job. 

Women  are  driven  to  the  factories  so  young 


FELLOWSHIP  IN  INDUSTRY 


123 


as  to  prevent  all  right  preparation  for  wifehood, 
motherhood  and  home-making,  and  subjected  to 
such  strain  as  unfits  them  for  these  highest  func¬ 
tions  of  their  sex.  1,750,000  children  who 
ought  to  be  at  play  and  school,  getting  ready  for 
life,  are  at  the  machine — and  in  the  machine, 
being  ground  up  body,  mind  and  soul,  simply  to 
make  the  rich  richer. 

And  to  keep  up  the  margin  of  unemployment 
upon  which  our  present  system  of  industry  abso¬ 
lutely  depends,  a  million  or  so  must  always  be 
below  the  line  of  self-maintenance,  subsisting  on 
the  public  charity  which  thus  becomes  a  necessary 
factor  in  the  support  of  industry. 

When  one  thus  sees  the  problem  in  terms  of 
human  life,  it  ceases  to  be  a  purely  industrial  or 
economic  problem.  It  becomes  a  human,  moral, 
aye,  a  religious  problem  with  which  we  are  all 
directly  concerned. 

Two  questions  immediately  present  themselves : 

First:  Is  this  distribution  of  wealth  and  of 
the  products  of  industry  just  and  equitable?  Do 
all  the  few  rich  earn  their  wealth  and  income  by 
an  equivalent  of  service  rendered  to  society? 
And  do  all  the  poor  earn  their  poverty  by  in¬ 
efficiency,  laziness,  immorality  and  the  like? 
And,  secondly :  Is  such  a  distribution  conducive 
to  the  best  moral  health  of  the  individual  and 
the  well-being  of  society? 

The  answer  is,  to  all  thinking  people,  an  obvious 


124 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


and  inevitable  negation.  But,  it  is  commonly 
said,  how  are  you  going  to  help  it?  The  dis¬ 
tribution  of  wealth  is  as  inevitably  fixed  by  the 
natural  laws  of  society  as  the  distribution  of 
mountains  and  valleys,  seas  and  rivers  is  by  the 
laws  of  the  physical  world.  And  industry  is  as 
surely  fated  by  cause  and  effect  as  is  physics  or 
chemistry.  It  is  all  an  outcome  of  the  struggle 
for  existence  and  the  survival  of  the  fittest. 
That  was  the  discovery  of  Malthus  (I  am  sorry 
to  say  a  clergyman  of  the  Anglican  Church), 
years  before  Darwin.  You  recall  his  familiar 
theme,  “Human  population  constantly  tends  to 
increase  faster  than  the  means  for  its  subsistence 
increase.  Consequently,  population  continually 
presses  on  the  limits  of  subsistence,  and  the  over¬ 
plus  must  perish  that  the  rest  may  survived 
The  natural  corollary,  vigorously  argued,  is 
that  the  fittest  survive — the  strongest,  most  ef¬ 
ficient,  the  cleverest,  the  shrewdest,  and  it  is  even 
maintained  the  most  intellectual  and  moral — these 
climb  to  the  top.  The  rest,  the  lazy,  inefficient, 
ignorant,  physically  or  mentally  weak,  the  shift¬ 
less  and  immoral — these  are  crowded  to  the  wall 
and  trampled  underfoot.  We  cannot  change  that 
law.  We  should  not  wish  to  change  it,  for  it  is 
the  urge  of  all  human  progress  and  the  better¬ 
ment  of  the  species.  The  doctrine  finds  economic 
and  industrial  expression  in  the  wages-fund 
theory.  There  is  just  so  much  money  to  be  paid 


FELLOWSHIP  IN  INDUSTRY 


125 


out  in  wages  in  industry.  The  more  hands  de¬ 
manding  employment,  the  smaller  the  share  of 
each;  the  fewer  the  applicants,  the  larger  the 
share  of  each.  This  is  the  law  of  supply  and 
demand,  which  is  as  inexorable  in  the  realms  of 
industry  as  is  the  law  of  gravitation  in  physics, 
or  of  chemical  affinity  in  chemistry. 

So  what  are  you  going  to  do  about  it?  I 
should  answer  that  if  we  were  mere  animals, 
brutes  and  beasts,  there  would  be  nothing  we 
could  do  about  it.  But,  being  human,  men  with 
minds  and  wills,  and  presumably  consciences  and 
hearts,  there  is  much,  incalculably  much,  that  we 
can  do  about  it,  if  we  will.  We  can  do  much 
about  production — that  is  chiefly  a  matter  of 
brains.  And  we  can  do  more  about  distribution 
— that  is  a  matter  of  brains  and  also  still  more 
of  heart  and  conscience  and  will. 

As  to  production,  is  it  true  that  population  is 
always  pressing  upon  the  limits  of  subsistence  so 
that  the  struggle  for  existence  is  inevitable? 
Must  man  forever  fight  his  brother  to  get  enough 
to  live  on?  That  is  true  perhaps  in  the  jungle 
and  the  forest  as  between  beasts.  I  do  not  be¬ 
lieve  that  it  need  be  true  at  all  as  between  human 
beings.  In  the  first  place,  many  doubt  whether 
the  population  of  the  globe  has  materially  in¬ 
creased  in  many  centuries.  We  have  no  ancient 
censuses  or  statistics  to  go  by.  But  we  know 
that  regions  once  teeming  with  countless  multi- 


126 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


tudes  are  now  sparsely  populated  and  barren. 
The  population  has  simply  moved  elsewhere  or 
perished.  Some  peoples  show  an  increase  and 
others  a  decrease,  and  a  declining  birth  rate  is 
still,  not  a  satisfaction,  but  a  cause  of  alarm  to  a 
nation.  And  also  observe,  the  more  cattle  in  a 
pasture,  the  less  grass  for  each  beast.  But  man 
knows  how  to  make  two  blades  of  grass  grow 
where  but  one  grew  before.  By  irrigation  and 
dry-farming  he  makes  the  hitherto  barren  desert 
blossom  as  the  rose.  The  more  beavers  in  a 
creek,  the  fewer  fish.  But  man  can  by  pisci¬ 
culture  breed  fish  and  stock  streams.  He  can 
reforest.  He  can  renew  and  enrich  the  soil  on 
which  he  grows  crops,  and  the  possibilities  of 
intensive  agriculture  have  not  been  touched  yet. 
vSuppose  we  improve  and  cheapen  our  methods  of 
extracting  free  nitrogen  from  the  atmosphere — 
where  is  the  limit  of  our  possibilities  of  produc¬ 
tion?  So  with  all  the  forces  and  resources  of 
nature  we  depend  on.  If  coal  shows  signs  of 
exhaustion,  we  shall  levy  on  the  white  coal — the 
streams  and  rivers — we  shall  harness  the  tides 
and  solar  energies  for  light,  heat  and  power. 
We  are  just  beginning  to  get  hints  of  inexhaust¬ 
ible  powers  in  nature  not  yet  brought  into  the 
service  of  man.  There  are  practically  no  limits 
discoverable  to  what  science  can,  and  may  do,  in 
increasing  production. 

Even  in  our  present  stage  of  development,  it 


FELLOWSHIP  IN  INDUSTRY 


1 27 

is  not  the  limited  possibilities  of  production  that 
impoverish  and  sometimes  starve  the  majority 
of  mankind.  There  is  more  than  enough  to  go 
around  already,  if  the  machinery  of  production 
were  fully  and  efficiently  worked.  It  has  been 
calculated  that  the  present  known  resources  of  the 
globe,  efficiently  worked  and  justly  distributed, 
would  support  a  population  five  or  six  times  as 
great  as  the  world  has  to-day,  and  that  each 
worker  could  in  seven  years  of  five-hour  days 
earn  enough  to  support  him  a  life  time. 

The  difficulty,  I  repeat,  is  not  with  the  limited 
possibilities  of  production.  Take,  for  instance, 
modern  machinery.  It  has  increased  production 
"  many  thousand  times  over  that  of  the  old  handi¬ 
crafts.  Human  population  has  not  increased  in 
anything  like  the  same  ratio.  Machinery  ought 
to  have  liberated  man  for  higher  things,  yet  it 
has  made  us  all,  particularly  the  workers,  its  ab¬ 
ject  slaves.  It  ought  to  have  warmed,  clothed, 
fed  and  housed  us  all  beyond  our  desires  and 
dreams,  and  yet  multitudes  starve  and  freeze 
while  resources  are  untouched,  machinery  rusts, 
and  willing  hands  are  idle.  It  is  doubtful 
whether  the  invention  and  application  of  ma¬ 
chinery  has  really  increased  even  the  material 
welfare  and  physical  comfort  of  the  average  man 
of  to-day.  The  situation  reminds  me  of  a 
prophecy  made  years  ago  about  Detroit,  the 
metropolis  of  the  automobile.  It  was  confidently 


128 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


predicted  that  with  the  increased  speed  and  car¬ 
rying  capacity  of  automobiles  over  horse-drawn 
vehicles,  far  fewer  vehicles  would  be  required 
for  service  and  the  congestion  of  the  streets  would 
be  relieved!  And,  to-day,  it  is  at  the  risk  of 
your  life  that  you  try  to  cross  a  side-street  in 
Detroit. 

So  machinery  was  to  free  and  enrich  us  all  by 
its  enormously  increased  productivity,  while  in 
fact  it  has  riveted  the  shackles  of  slavery  upon 
us  and  left  the  poor  still  deeper  in  their  poverty. 
Take  the  coal  situation.  There  is  more  coal  mined 
than  we  need — too  many  mines  operated,  too 
many  miners  working.  Therefore  what?  Prices 
are  exorbitant — in  some  regions  coal  cannot  be 
had  at  any  price,  and  many  shiver  and  industries 
are  stopped  because  there  is  too  much  coal. 
Sabotage  is  constantly  practised  by  both  sides  in 
our  industry — probably  far  more  by  employers 
and  capitalists  than  by  labourers.  Factories  are 
temporarily  shut  down  or  permanently  closed, 
production  habitually  limited,  but  the  markets 
become  glutted  and  prices  go  down,  and  yet 
everywhere  there  are  people  who  need  the  goods, 
workers  ready  to  make  them,  and  materials  to 
make  them  out  of.  Too  many  shoes,  therefore 
people  must  go  barefoot.  Too  much  food,  there¬ 
fore  people  must  go  hungry.  Too  much  wool  and 
cotton,  therefore  folks  must  lack  clothes — and 
so  on  and  on.  Is  it  not  enough  to  drive  one  in- 


FELLOWSHIP  IN  INDUSTRY 


129 

sane?  Could  not  a  committee  from  Bedlam  de¬ 
vise  a  more  rational  and  efficient  system  ? 

No;  the  difficulty  is  not  with  the  limited  pos¬ 
sibilities  of  production.  Population  has  not  yet 
begun  to  press  upon  the  limits  of  possible  sub¬ 
sistence  anywhere,  if  the  resources  of  the  earth 
and  the  production  of  the  world  were  more  ef¬ 
ficiently  developed  and  pooled  for  all  lands. 
Even  with  a  system  of  industry  confessedly  not 
fifty  per  cent  efficient,  with  its  enormous  wastes 
through  strikes,  lock-outs  and  recurrent  unem¬ 
ployment,  its  lack  of  psychology,  of  human  ap¬ 
peal  to  motives  of  the  workers,  even  with  such  a 
lame  system,  we  can  produce  enough  for  all  our 
needs.  The  chief  fault  lies  somewhere  else. 

Our  present  method  of  competition  of  each 
with  all  for  private  advantage,  with  its  one  mo¬ 
tive  of  greed  for  individual  acquisition,  is  respon¬ 
sible  for  most  of  our  poverty  and  want,  and  for 
the  misery  and  inhumaness  of  all  concerned,  rich 
and  poor  alike.  Scott  and  his  fellow-explorers 
in  the  Antarctic  observed  one  day  a  flock  of  sea¬ 
birds  fighting  over  the  carcass  of  a  freshly-slain 
seal.  There  were  ten  times  enough  in  the  car¬ 
cass  to  gorge  them  all.  But  they  fought  each 
other  for  the  first  and  biggest  chance,  until  the 
carcass  was  frozen  so  hard  that  no  bird  could 
get  his  beak  or  talons  into  it. 

You  recall  Tolstoy’s  parable  of  the  banquet. 
The  Heavenly  Father  prepares  a  feast  for  all 


130 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


His  children.  He  sets  the  table  and  loads  it  with 
His  bounty,  and  then  opens  the  door  to  the  wait¬ 
ing  crowd.  They  rush  in  pell-mell,  maul  and 
knock  each  other  about.  The  strong  seize  all 
each  can  carry  and  more  than  he  can  eat,  and 
retire  to  their  corners,  too  busy  glowering  over 
and  defending  their  possessions  even  to  enjoy 
them.  The  weak  are  crowded  to  the  wall  and 
trodden  underfoot  empty-handed.  Everything  is 
wrecked  and  nobody  is  satisfied,  and  when  the 
fight  is  over,  the  crowd  retires  wretched  and 
hungry.  Again  the  patient  Heavenly  Father 
sets  the  table  and  prepares  the  feast  and  opens  the 
door,  only  for  a  repetition  of  the  old  story.  That 
seems  to  me  a  fair  picture  of  our  present  economic 
and  industrial  order,  so-called. 

You  may  say  that  is  human  nature,  you  can¬ 
not  change  it.  Selfishness  and  greed  are  its  in¬ 
nate  and  ineradicable  ruling  instincts  and  they 
cannot  be  uprooted  or  even  modified.  I  deny 
that.  They  have  been  modified  in  the  home  and 
family  life,  in  the  learned  professions,  in  polite 
society.  And  they  can  be  everywhere,  if  there  is 
assurance  of  justice  and  opportunity  for  all.  >If 
we  are  only  beasts,  then  the  law  of  the  jungle  is 
inevitable — the  law  that  now  rules  the  world  of 
humanity.  But  if  we  are  men,  men  with  reasons, 
wills,  hearts  and  consciences,  we  may  rise  to  the 
recognition  of  and  obedience  to  a  higher  law 
here  as  we  have  in  so  many  other  regions  of 


FELLOWSHIP  IN  INDUSTRY 


131 

human  life.  That  is  what  the  masses  are  feeling 
everywhere  to-day.  That  is  the  source  of  the 
prevailing  industrial  unrest  and  social  discon¬ 
tent.  Men  are  realising  everywhere  that  there 
can  be,  aye,  there  is  already,  enough  to  go  around 
in  this  feast  of  life,  that  the  fault  is  not  with  the 
niggardliness  of  nature  or  the  Heavenly  Father, 
as  you  choose  to  put  it,  not  with  the  ignorance  and 
greed  of  men,  not  with  an  inscrutable  Providence, 
but  certain  very  scrutable  human  arrangements 
and  systems. 

What  is  the  answer  to  the  problem  ?  I  believe 
it  can  all  be  summed  up  in  one  word — fellowship, 
fellowship  in  production  and  fellowship  in  dis¬ 
tribution,  a  fellowship  that  expresses  itself  prac¬ 
tically  in  the  supremacy  of  the  service  motive 
over  the  profit  motive  and  the  substitution  of  the 
co-operation  of  all  in  the  service  of  all  in  the 
place  of  the  present  mad  competition  of  each  with 
every  other  for  private  advantage. 

Such  ideals  for  the  reorganisation  of  industry 
are  growing  into  more  and  more  commanding 
power  among  the  intelligent  and  thinking  leaders 
of  the  masses.  The  vision  of  the  possible  and 
necessary  reorganisation  of  industry  along  these 
lines  is  becoming  clearer  and  clearer  before  their 
eyes.  It  is  uniting  this  class  at  least  in  a  new 
and  fervid  fellowship  of  ever-increasing  power. 
It  is  the  final  motive  and  urge  of  most  labour 
movements  and  organisations  the  world  over 


132 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


whatever  sordid  motives,  incapable  and  dishonest 
leadership,  ignorant  and  absurd  policies  and 
methods,  may  sometimes,  even  often,  first  catch 
the  eye  of  the  investigator.  The  superficial  ob¬ 
server  sees  only  these  glaring  defects  on  the 
surface.  He  does  not  discern  the  informing  and 
inspiring  spirit  which  lies  at  the  heart  of  the 
whole  movement  and  which,  I  believe,  will  domi¬ 
nate  it. 

Perhaps  a  hasty  sketch  of  one  typical  labour- 
movement  will  illustrate  what  I  mean.  I  refer 
to  the  English  Labour  Movement. 

It  was  born  out  of  the  agony  and  travail  of 
the  early  nineteenth  century.  Never  had  the  con¬ 
dition  of  the  toiling  masses  in  Great  Britain  sunk 
to  a  lower  level,  than  in  the  first  third  of  that 
great  century.  There  were  many  contributing 
causes  I  can  barely  touch,  and  refer  you  to  other 
authorities  for  verification.  Mediaeval  Catholi¬ 
cism  had  exercised  at  least  a  mitigating  influence 
on  social  and  industrial  conditions.  The  guild 
system,  while  local  and  jealous,  still  secured  to  the 
public  some  assurance  of  honest  goods  and  fair 
prices,  to  the  merchant  protection  from  unre¬ 
strained  competition  and  for  the  worker  made  a 
living  wage  the  first  charge  on  industry.  But 
with  the  Renaissance  and  the  Reformation  came 
a  flood  of  individualism.  It  is  said  that  modem 
Capitalism  was  born  with  Calvinism.  Under 


FELLOWSHIP  IN  INDUSTRY 


133 

these  and  other  purely  economic  influences,  the 
old  guild  system  melted  away. 

The  hard  economics  of  modern  times  estab¬ 
lished  itself  and  proclaimed  its  laws,  as  inevitable 
and  inexorable  as  those  of  physics,  the  law  of 
wages  and  the  wages-fund,  of  diminishing  re¬ 
turns,  of  supply  and  demand,  etc.  The  Malthu¬ 
sian  philosophy  reigned  supreme.  Were  there 
misery,  poverty,  starvation?  They  were  due  to 
an  inscrutable  Providence  which  had  fixed  these 
laws  as  inexorably  as  those  that  swing  the  stars  in 
their  orbits.  You  could  not  regulate  industry  in 
the  interests  of  human  welfare  any  more  than  you 
could  regulate  an  earthquake  or  a  tempest.  Moral 
principles,  ethical  considerations,  social  motives, 
above  all,  religion,  had  no  place  in  the  system. 
To  inject  them  was  to  throw  a  monkey-wrench 
into  the  machinery.  Covetousness  and  greed, 
ambition,  in  a  word  selfishness  was  the  only  mo¬ 
tive  strong  enough  to  drive  the  stupendous  ma¬ 
chinery  and  turn  out  the  production  the  world 
needed.  To  depend  on  any  altruistic  motive  like 
service  to  the  common  weal  were  as  futile  and 
absurd  as  to  depend  on  a  child’s  paper  windwheel 
to  drive  the  machinery  of  a  great  factory.  Sel¬ 
fishness  would  gradually  become  enlightened  and 
out  of  the  clash  of  its  unrestrained  individual 
competition,  would  be  hammered  out  some  rude, 
tolerable  form  of  justice  in  industrial  relations. 


*34 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


But  the  prevailing  doctrine  was  laissez  faire— 
“hands  off,”  no  attempt  to  restrain  or  regulate  for 
social  welfare.  Individual  initiative  and  free¬ 
dom  were  the  priceless  and  inalienable  rights 
of  industry  and  the  one  urge  of  all  its  progress. 
The  strong  man  must  be  free  to  run  his  course 
unlet  and  unhindered. 

Did  wages  sink  below  the  level  of  subsistence? 
They  were  eked  out  by  grants  from  parochial 
charity  funds  and  therefore  they  sunk  still  lower. 
Industry  fattened,  as  it  still  does  to-day,  on  pub¬ 
lic  charity  which  maintained  its  cheap  labour  and 
necessary  margin  of  unemployment. 

The  rapidly  increasing  enclosure  of  the  com¬ 
mons  took  away  from  the  rural  poor  their  one 
small  chance  of  relief  by  access  to  natural  re¬ 
sources. 

The  industrial  revolution,  with  its  substitution 
of  power-driven  machinery  for  the  old  handi¬ 
crafts,  utterly  destroyed  the  old  domestic  system 
of  industry  with  its  human  and  personal  rela¬ 
tions  and  contacts,  herded  the  workers  in  jerry- 
built  homes,  slums  surrounding  the  vast  factory 
buildings,  worked  them  unlimited  hours  for  un¬ 
regulated  wages,  under  the  control  of  distant  and 
soulless  corporations  whose  only  interest  was 
dividends  and  production,  and  whose  only  liaison 
officers  were  managers  with  the  one  responsibil¬ 
ity,  to  increase  production  and  dividends. 

The  natural  and  inevitable  results  ensued. 


FELLOWSHIP  IN  INDUSTRY 


135 


Rural  labour  starved  until  twice  insurrections 
flamed  throughout  all  England.  In  mines,  half- 
naked  and  sometimes  pregnant  women  were 
hitched  like  beasts  of  burden  to  cars  laden  with 
coal,  and  toiled  for  fourteen,  fifteen  and  more 
hours  a  day.  Little  tots,  carried  on  the  shoulders 
of  their  fathers  to  the  mines,  spent  the  same  long 
hours  in  the  terrifying  darkness  of  the  pits,  with 
nothing  to  do  but  open  and  shut  doors  for  pass¬ 
ing  cars  till  often  they  became  imbeciles.  Or¬ 
phan  asylums  turned  their  children,  even  under 
eight,  into  the  factories,  under  contracts  that  re¬ 
lieved  the  public  a  little  of  their  bare  subsistence, 
and  then  these  tiny  waifs  worked  till  they  dropped 
or  starved.  Working-men  had  no  protection 
whatsoever  as  to  wages,  hours  or  conditions. 

In  the  presence  of  such  a  tragedy  the  public 
conscience  was  largely  lethargic,  drugged  by  the 
splendour  of  the  new  material  prosperity.  The 
Church  was  for  the  most  part  silent,  or  actually 
approved  the  existing  conditions.  A  few  noble 
souls,  fighting  a  terrific  battle  with  all  respectable 
society  arrayed  against  them,  started  that  factory 
and  industrial  legislation  in  which  England,  sec¬ 
ond  only  to  Germany  before  the  war,  has  led 
the  world. 

But  the  chief  defence,  indeed,  the  final  and  only 
salvation  of  the  oppressed  masses,  was  found  at 
last  in  a  new  movement  among  themselves.  It 
was  the  movement  of  labour  organisation.  It 


I36  THE  gospel  of  fellowship 

met  furious  opposition  and  resistance  at  the  start. 
It  was  a  crime  punishable  by  law  for  one  labourer 
to>  speak  to  another  about  the  possibility  of  pre¬ 
venting  a  cut  in  wages.  And  to  effect  any  sort 
of  an  association,  even  for  benevolent  or  educa¬ 
tional  purposes,  brought  fines,  imprisonment  and 
even  exile  from  courts  presided  over  sometimes 
by  clerical  magistrates.  The  first  seven  rural  la¬ 
bourers  who  formed  an  association  in  Devonshire 
were  deported  to  a  distant  penal  colony.  But 
the  “blood  of  the  martyrs  is  ever  the  seed  of  the 
Church.”  Persecution  strengthens  and  propa¬ 
gates  most  idealistic  and  religious  movements. 
And  the  labour  movement  in  Great  Britain  was 
conceived  and  born  in  religion.  Its  first  leaders 
were  largely  drawn  from  the  ranks  of  Wesleyan 
lay-preachers.  As  Arthur  Henderson  says,  “It 
is  saturated  with  the  principles  of  practical  Chris¬ 
tianity  and  can  never  get  away  from  them.” 
That  is  the  distinguishing  characteristic  of  the 
English  movement,  differentiating  it  largely  from 
others,  particularly  the  Continental,  which  is  so 
largely  materialistic  and  even  anti-religious. 

So  the  movement  grew — slowly,  with  much 
conflict,  up  to  1850,  then  more  steadily,  until 
finally,  during  the  World  War,  it  practically 
doubled  its  numbers.  To-day,  about  six  millions 
of  the  labourers  of  England  are  strongly  or¬ 
ganised  in  trade-unions — that  is,  sixty  per  cent, 
roughly,  of  all  English  labour  as  contrasted  with 


FELLOWSHIP  IN  INDUSTRY 


137 

the  United  States,  where  only  about  fifteen  or 
twenty  per  cent  is  organised. 

What  has  trade  unionism  done  for  the  masses 
in  England  ?  The  material  conditions  of  English 
labourers  are  not,  we  must  frankly  admit,  as  good 
as  those  of  the  American,  but  that  is  due  to  the 
fact  that  natural  resources  are  not  so  completely 
monopolised  here  as  they  are  in  the  older  and 
smaller  country,  though  the  process  of  monopo¬ 
lisation  is  rapidly  going  on  here.  But  the  po¬ 
litical  and  economic  status  of  English  labour  is 
vastly  better  than  that  of  his  American  brother. 

Trade  unions  have  enormously  stimulated  and 
advanced  legislation  for  factory  and  industrial 
regulation  in  the  interests  of  the  well-being  of 
the  masses.  They  have  practically  established 
universally  the  practice  of  collective  bargaining. 
They  have  secured  a  large  measure  of  industrial 
democracy  in  certain  industries.  They  have 
given  labour  some  degree  of  control  over  wages, 
hours  and  conditions.  They  have  put  labour  in 
a  position  of  influence  and  power  almost  un¬ 
paralleled  in  any  other  country,  as  witness  the 
hearings  of  the  Royal  Coal  Commissions,  when 
labour  practically  won  its  contention,  member¬ 
ship  in  the  Cabinet  of  the  Government  during  the 
war. 

And  labour  has  not  lost  its  original  vision  and 
idealism.  I  attended  its  great  Congress  at  Car¬ 
diff  in  1921.  For  a  week  a  thousand  representa- 


138  the  gospel  of  fellowship 


tives  of  6,000,000  workers  sat  and  debated. 
Technical  questions  were  quickly  disposed  of 
and  the  interest  of  the  great  assembly  was  con¬ 
centrated  on  such  commanding  ideals  as  world- 
peace  and  the  means  to  it,  the  League  of  Nations 
and  the  Washington  Conference,  on  education  for 
the  masses  and  their  equipment  for  their  coming 
task.  I  know  of  no  assembly  of  manufacturers, 
employers,  or  business  men  which  has  exhibited 
such  paramount  concern  for  the  great  ideals  and 
causes  of  human  welfare. 

Labour  has  also  gone  into  business  for  itself 
in  the  Co-operative  Movement.  The  motives  that 
drove  it  into  this  field  were  two : 

1.  An  economic  motive.  The  pressure  of  the 
cost  of  living  is  always  heaviest  upon  the  poor. 
The  rich  can  buy  goods  of  the  best  quality  in 
large  quantities  at  relatively  low  prices.  The 
poor  must  take  the  cheap  and  shoddy  stuff  at  rela¬ 
tively  high  prices  because  they  can  buy  only  in 
small  quantities — coal  by  the  bucketful,  tea  by  the 
quarter-pound. 

2.  A  moral  or  religious  motive.  We  are 
taught  by  our  religion  to  be  straight,  truthful, 
honest,  to  put  service  above  self.  We  go  out  into  a 
commercial  world  where  self-interest  always 
comes  first,  and  we  are  taught  often  to  admire 
cunning,  shrewdness,  even  to  the  point  of  dis¬ 
honesty  and  oppression. 

Urged  by  such  motives,  a  little  group  of  seven 


FELLOWSHIP  IN  INDUSTRY 


139 


weavers  set  up  the  first  co-operative  store  in 
Rochdale,  Lancashire,  in  1845.  Its  capital  was 
one  pound.  But  its  principles  were  far-reaching : 

1.  Any  one  could  become  a  stockholder  who 
could  invest  one  shilling.  Nobody  was  permitted 
to  invest  more  than  two  hundred  pounds. 

2.  Each  stockholder  should  get  the  current 
rate  of  interest  on  his  amount  invested. 

3.  No  stockholder  should  have  more  than  one 
vote,  whatever  his  investment.  No*  one,  and  no 
small  group,  should  be  able  to  corner  the  stock 
and  control  the  business. 

4.  There  should  be  no  profit  to  any  individual 
or  group  of  individuals,  but  each  should  receive  a 
rebate  on  his  purchases  from  the  profit  of  the 
whole  business. 

Established  on  those  simple  principles,  the 
movement  has  grown  until,  to-day,  it  has  more 
than  four  million  members,  representing  with 
their  families  probably  twelve  or  fifteen  millions 
of  people.  It  did  a  business  in  1920  over  its 
retail  counters  of  one  billion  dollars  and  in  its 
wholesale  department  of  five  hundred  million. 
It  clothes,  feeds  and  sustains  perhaps  fifteen  or 
twenty  per  cent  of  England’s  population.  Its 
machinery  carried  England  through  the  stress 
of  the  war,  when  the  public  sustenance  was 
threatened.  It  finances  through  its  banks  the 
labour  movement  quite  generally.  It  insures 
against  fire-loss,  sickness,  old  age  and  unemploy- 


140 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


ment.  And  it  is  growing  steadily.  It  has  just 
launched  a  new  movement  of  co-operation  among 
producers,  the  National  Buildings  Guild.  As  it 
itself  is  purely  a  co-operation  of  commerce,  it 
has  its  schools  for  training  in  the  methods,  spirit 
and  ideals  of  co-operation  and  it  is  characterised 
by  the  enthusiasm  and  fervour  of  a  religion. 

Labour  has  gone  into  politics.  Its  representa¬ 
tion  in  the  House  of  Commons  has  steadily  in¬ 
creased  from  one  in  1895  to  one  hundred  and 
forty-two  in  1922,  and  most  Englishmen  antici¬ 
pate  a  Labour  Government  in  the  near  future, 
and  nobody  is  particularly  frightened  by  the  pros¬ 
pect.  It  issued  during  the  War  its  platform,  or 
program  of  policies,  characterised  by  Bishop 
Brent  as  the  most  Christian  document  of  the  war. 
It  stands  in  international  relations  for  the  League 
of  Nations,  the  substitution  of  the  arbitrament  of 
reason  and  law  for  the  arbitrament  of  force  in 
the  settlement  of  international  disputes,  for  the 
use  of  economic  pressure  rather  than  military 
force  to  bring  any  recalcitrant  nation  to  that 
tribunal,  for  open  covenants  openly  arrived  at, 
and  the  abolition  of  secret  diplomacy,  secret 
treaties,  and  partial  alliances  to  establish  the  bal¬ 
ance  of  power.  It  presses  disarmament.  It  calls 
for  the  settlement  of  commercial  disputes  between 
peoples,  the  one  most  fruitful  cause  of  war,  by 
law  before  international  courts  instead  of  by  arms 
on  the  field  of  battle. 


FELLOWSHIP  IN  INDUSTRY 


141 

In  inter-colonial  matters,  it  would  set  up  a 
league  of  British  democracies,  each  self-determin¬ 
ing  and  independent,  but  bound  together  by  that 
strongest  of  all  bonds— loyalty  to  the  ideal  of  de¬ 
mocracy,  in  the  place  of  the  present  Imperial 
British  Empire. 

In  domestic  matters,  it  would  take  taxes  off 
production  and  put  them  on  privilege,  on  na¬ 
tional  resources,  on  land-values,  on  incomes  and 
inheritances,  and  spend  the  proceeds,  not  on  mili¬ 
tary  establishments,  but  on  public  sanitation, 
health  and  education.  It  would  nationalise  cer¬ 
tain  key-industries,  such  as  coal  and  transporta¬ 
tion,  buying  out  the  present  owners  and  running 
the  business  through  boards  of  experts  responsi¬ 
ble  to  the  public.  It  would  focus  the  co-opera¬ 
tive  movement  wherever  practicable,  and  it  would 
regulate  all  necessarily  privately  owned  and  capi¬ 
talistic  enterprises  in  the  interest  of  the  common 
weal.  It  would  free  and  democratise  credit. 

It  is  a  noble  program,  which  appeals  to  the 
Christian  conscience.  And  it  is  getting  ready  for 
its  task.  It  has  its  experts  in  every  field,  schol¬ 
ars  of  the  highest  standing,  preparing  carefully 
the  details  of  its  policies.  And  it  is  training  the 
masses  of  its  constituents  through  carefully  pre¬ 
pared  courses  of  popular  education.  It  realises, 
in  Frank  Hodges’  words,  that  democracy  is  in¬ 
evitable,  democracy  in  industry  as  well  as  in  poli¬ 
tics.  But  woe  be  unto  us  if  it  be  an  uneducated 


142 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


democracy!  Therefore,  the  chief  emphasis  of 
the  Labour  Movement  must  be  put  on  education, 
on  training  for  its  task. 

I  have  dealt  at  some  length  with  this  British 
Labour  Movement  because  it  is  typical  and  il¬ 
lustrative  of  what  is  going  on  in  our  modern 
world.  It  brings  before  us  in  concrete  form  some 
of  the  issues  of  the  new  “social  revolution”  which 
we  are  called  on  to  face.  It  voices  articulately 
some  of  the  fundamental  demands  which  inspire 
the  social  discontent  and  social  unrest  of  the  day. 

In  every  country  and  nation  such  movements 
are  sweeping  through  the  masses,  steadily  gath¬ 
ering  numbers  and  power.  Labour  governments 
are  ruling  in  most  of  the  new  Republics  of  Eu¬ 
rope.  Labour  holds  the  balance  of  power  in 
England  and,  by  the  confessions  of  all  intelli¬ 
gent  observers  of  each  party,  will  probably  soon 
take  the  reins  of  government.  The  labour- 
farmer  vote  in  the  United  States  is  rising  to  as¬ 
cendancy.  It  holds  the  balance  of  power  in  our 
national  Congress  to-day. 

These  are  facts  that  must  be  faced.  They 
ring'  a  challenge  in  our  ears  which  we  must  an¬ 
swer.  Simply  to  set  our  old  theories  of  class 
privilege  and  domination  on  the  beach,  like  King 
Canute,  and  forbid  the  tide  to  rise  any  further, 
is  to  risk  being  overwhelmed  by  the  swelling 
waters.  To  dam  them  up  by  attempted  suppres- 


FELLOWSHIP  IN  INDUSTRY 


143 

sion  and  repression  is  to  bring  on  a  destructive 
flood  of  radicalism  and  revolution. 

We  must  adjust  ourselves  to  a  visibly  changing 
order.  And  the  situation  requires  more  than 
mere  adjustment  and  compromise.  It  demands 
nothing  less  than  a  change  of  base  in  industry 
and  business  generally,  in  the  motives  that  drive 
them  and  the  methods  of  carrying  them  on.  As 
the  Lambeth  Conference  put  it,  “A  fundamental 
change  in  their  spirit  and  working.” 

The  situation  demands,  first,  a  revision  of  our 
conception  of  the  rights  of  private  property.  I 
know  that  here  I  am  touching  the  sacred  Ark  of 
the  Covenant  and  I  may  be  blasted  by  the  divine 
wrath  of  the  privileged  possessors.  To  the  mod¬ 
ern  business  man,  as  to  Tennyson’s  Yorkshire 
farmer,  the  very  hoofs  of  his  horse  sing  the  per¬ 
petual  song — “Property,  property,  property.” 
Property  is  the  sacred  citadel  of  all  rights,  the 
holy  of  holies,  inviolable,  the  aegis  that  protects 
all  other  rights,  law,  order,  civilisation  itself. 
As  an  American  judge  lately  stated  it — “There 
are  three  sacred  and  inalienable  human  rights — 
life,  liberty  and  property,  and  the  greatest  of 
these  is  property.”  I  doubt  if  St.  Paul  would 
recognise  and  admit  this  paraphrase  of  his  great 
saying ! 

But,  nevertheless,  the  situation  demands  a  care¬ 
ful  revision  of,  and  an  intelligent  discrimination 


144 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


in  our  current  conceptions  of  the  rights  of  prop¬ 
erty.  He  who  shuts  his  eyes  to1,  and  refuses  to 
make  such  a  revision  and  discrimination  is  more 
dangerous  than  the  radical.  He  imperils  the 
thing  he  holds  most  dear — all  private  property. 
He  who  intelligently  discerns  and  defines  the  real 
right  in  all  alleged  rights,  best  protects  all  the 
rights  that  have  the  right  to  stand. 

Once  there  was  an  acknowledged  right  of  prop¬ 
erty  in  human  beings,  slaves,  serfs,  wives,  con¬ 
cubines,  and  children.  We  have  abolished  that 
right  and  thereby  enormously  strengthened  the 
security  of  other  real  rights.  So,  to-day,  the  real 
advocate  of  rightful  property  will  best  serve  his 
cause  by  acknowledging  and  surrendering  some 
so-called  vested  rights  which  are  really  invested 
wrongs.  Two  principles  H  would  stand  for: 

1.  Human  rights  must  always  take  precedence 
of  property  rights  of  any  sort.  A  man,  any 
man,  the  humblest  human  being,  with  his  right  to 
life,  liberty  and  self-development,  must  always 
be  worth  more  than  a  wedge  of  the  gold  of 
Ophir.  That  principle  must,  in  the  future,  be 
the  determining  factor  in  society’s  regulation  of 
the  rights  of  private  property.  They  must  be 
distributed  and  administered  in  such  fashion  as 
will  best  promote  human  welfare,  the  largest  good 
of  the  greatest  number. 

2.  Bishop  Gore  has  made  a  keen  distinction 
between  property  for  use  and  property  for  power. 


FELLOWSHIP  IN  INDUSTRY 


145 


The  one  is  property  actually  invested  and  em¬ 
ployed  for  purposes  of  production  and  service. 
Such  property  alone  is  properly  capital.  Capital 
is  an  absolutely  necessary  tool  and  instrument. 
It  should  be  in  the  hands  of  those  who'  can  best 
and  most  efficiently  use  it  for  the  common  weal. 
These  may  be  the  skilled  and  capable  cap¬ 
tains  of  industry  and  servants  of  the  common 
good,  and  they  may  be  comparatively  few.  In 
such  cases  private  property  and  ownership  are 
necessary  for  the  common  weal,  and  ought  to  be 
defended  and  maintained.  But  the  use  of  such 
a  tool  and  instrument  must  be  watched  and  kept 
true  to  its  purpose,  the  largest  good  of  the  great¬ 
est  number,  not  the  biggest  profit  possible  for  the 
individual  possessors. 

And  the  co-operative  movement  the  world 
over,  is  proving  that  the  ability  to  use  capital  as 
an  efficient  tool  of  production  and  service,  is  not 
so  exclusive  a  monopoly  of  a  few  gifted  super¬ 
men  as  we  have  hitherto  imagined.  There  is  a 
large  amount  of  such  ability  distributed  among 
the  masses  of  common  men,  which  can  be  focused 
most  efficiently  on  the  tasks  of  production  and 
service.  Such  co-operative  use  of  capital  de¬ 
mands  recognition  and  fostering  protection  and 
cultivation. 

But  there  is  also  property  for  power.  Such 
were  the  mediaeval  monopolies  in  certain  necessi¬ 
ties  of  life,  like  salt,  granted  by  kings  to  favourites 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


and  mistresses.  Such  are  the  modern  monopolies 
in  the  natural  resources  of  the  earth  whence  all 
wealth  must  be  drawn,  such  as  ore,  oil,  coal, 
water-power,  and  the  like,  the  site- values  of  land 
in  centres  of  population,  wholly  created  by  the 
congestion  of  that  population,  and  not  at  all  the 
product  of  the  individual’s  skill  or  toil. 

Such  property  simply  enables  its  possessor  to  get 
something  for  nothing,  to  live  by  owning  and 
not  by  earning,  to  tax  the  public  for  his  private 
benefit,  to  skim  the  cream  off  the  products  of  the 
producers,  while:  he  himself  lives  in  idleness. 
These  are  parasitic  incomes  and  constitute  the 
mass  of  our  unearned  wealth.  They  may  be 
held  and  enjoyed  by  idlers,  imbeciles  and  idiots 
in  perpetuity.  They  are  an  intolerable  burden 
bound  on  the  backs  of  the  actual  producers, 
shackles  and  fetters  upon  their  limbs. 

Such  property  for  power  should  be  abolished 
by  absorption  through  taxation  into  the  public 
treasury,  the  common  wealth.  The  old  apostolic 
maxim,  “If  any  man  will  not  work,  neither  shall 
he  eat,”  is  good,  economic  law.  Every  man 
should  be  compelled  to  contribute  to  society  in 
exact  proportion  as  he  draws  from  society.  This 
abolition  of  property  for  power,  is,  I  believe,  the 
primary  problem  in  any  equitable  distribution  of 
wealth.  It  is  the  knot  in  the  end  of  the  string, 
which  must  be  untied  before  we  can  get  at  any 
of  the  knots  higher  up.  And  then  comes  the 


FELLOWSHIP  IN  INDUSTRY 


147 


supreme,  the  paramount  task.  It  is  nought  less 
than  a  change  of  base  in  our  whole  system  of 
industry.  That  change  of  base  affects  two 
things — the  motive  of  industry  and  its  method. 

The  final  motive  of  all  industry,  as  commonly 
recognised  to-day,  is  self-interest.  We  live  in 
an  acquisitive  society.  Its  end  is  profits,  divi¬ 
dends,  wages,  power  for  the  individual — the 
utmost  that  can  be  extorted. 

If  we  would  Christianise  industry,  we  must 
change  the  base  of  motive.  We  must  turn  an 
acquisitive  society  into  a  functional  society.  The 
paramount  motive  must  be  service  to  the  common 
weal.  Now,  profit  is  the  end,  and  service  an 
incident,  a  by-product.  The  Christian  order  is 
service,  the  end,  profits,  the  means  to  that  end, 
as  much  profit  as  is  necessary  for  the  best  function¬ 
ing  of  service,  and  as  large  and  real  service  as 
can  be  wrought  out  of  the  means.  This  is  a 
complete  and  radical  reversal  of  the  present  mo¬ 
tivation  of  industry. 

And,  second,  co-operation  of  all  with  all  for 
the  good  of  all  must  be  substituted  for  the  com¬ 
petition  of  each  with  every  other  for  private  gain 
and  advantage. 

Do  not  say  the  dream  is  an  impossible  one  be¬ 
cause  human  nature  is  unchangeable,  lit  is  a 
fundamental  postulate  of  the  Christian  faith  that 
human  nature  can  be  changed — aye,  regenerated, 
and  the  alteration  of  environment  is  a  potent 


!48  THE  gospel  of  fellowship 


factor  in  that  change  and  regeneration.  Chris¬ 
tianity  has  already  effected  that  regeneration  in 
large  realms  of  our  common  life.  It  has  Chris¬ 
tianised,  at  least  in  ideals  and  standards,  whole 
institutions,  professions  and  vocations.  Take 
the  family,  for  example.  Once  it  was  practically 
commercialised.  Wives  were  breeding  mares, 
sons  were  raised  for  the  war-market  and  daugh¬ 
ters  for  the  labour  and  marriage  markets,  and 
the  patriarch  or  father  was  the  autocrat,  a  cor¬ 
poration  sole,  for  whose  profit  and  power  the 
whole  family  existed. 

To-day,  the  family  is  Christianised  in  all  Chris¬ 
tian  lands,  at  least  in  its  ideals  and  standards,  and 
it  is  Christianised  in  precisely  these  two  funda¬ 
mental  aspects.  Its  supreme,  paramount  motive 
is  the  service  of  all  by  all  instead  of  the  profit 
or  private  advantage  of  any  one  individual,  and 
its  method  the  co-operation  of  all  in  that  com¬ 
mon  service  of  the  common  weal,  instead  of  the 
competition  of  each  with  each  for  individual  pelf, 
power  or  pleasure. 

We  would  not  tolerate,  to-day,  in  education 
the  motives  and  methods  that  prevail  in  the  com¬ 
mercial  and  industrial  worlds.  Imagine,  if  you 
can,  the  teachers  in  our  public  schools  or  the 
members  of  the  faculties  of  our  colleges  and  uni¬ 
versities  competing  with  each  other  for  the  larg¬ 
est  individual  share  possible  in  the  public  educa¬ 
tional  funds  of  the  incomes  of  endowments! 


FELLOWSHIP  IN  INDUSTRY 


149 


Salaries,  all  too  small,  are  simply  the  means  to 
the  service  of  education,  the  training  of  our 
youth  for  life,  and  co-operation  for  those  ideal 
ends  is  the  accepted  rule. 

In  the  practice  of  medicine  we  suspect  the 
physician  who  advertises.  We  are  apt  to  write 
him  down  as  a  quack.  Why?  Because  service 
to  science  and  the  public  health  is  supposed  to  be 
his  only  legitimate  and  honourable  motive,  and 
his  emoluments  simply  the  means  of  maintaining 
that  service.  No  physician  or  surgeon  dares 
patent  and  hold  for  his  private  profit  any  dis¬ 
covery  that  promotes  the  efficiency  of  his  pro¬ 
fession  or  serves  the  public  safety  and  health. 

Yes,  we  have  established  the  Christian  law 
in  standards  and  ideals  at  least  in  vast  regions 
and  realms  of  our  common  life — service  the  end, 
and  fellowship,  co-operation  the  means.  Is  it 
hopeless  to  dream  therefore  of  so  Christianising 
the,  at  present,  pagan  realms  of  industry  and 
business  ?  Can  we  not  turn  an  acquisitive  society 
into  a  functional  society?  How  shall  we  go  about 
it?  Here  I  must  confess  myself  a  Christian 
opportunist.  I  see  clearly  the  end,  the  goal  to 
be  reached.  But  I  have  no  panacea  to  offer,  no 
immediate  and  magical  recipe  to  offer,  which 
shall  instantaneously  and  completely  transform 
industry  from  the  pagan  to  the  Christian  base. 
Here  we  must  follow  the  path  of  practical  ex¬ 
perimentation  by  experts. 


X5o  THE  gospel  of  fellowship 

I  have  little  confidence  in  wholesale  methods. 
Communism  has  proved  itself  a  disastrous  failure. 
Russia  has  worked  that  experiment  out  to  the 
ultimate  failure,  and  is  now  abandoning  it.  The 
labour  movement  the  world  over,  especially  in 
England  and  America,  is  turning  from  it.  Syn¬ 
dicalism  offers  no  fellowship  or  co-operation  of 
all  for  the  good  of  all,  but  only  another  class 
monopoly  and  domination,  which  would  be  infi¬ 
nitely  worse  than  the  present,  bad  as  that  is. 
Socialism  in  its  two  variations,  state  and  guild, 
is  trying  out  interesting  experiments,  and  there 
is  a  tremendous  drift  that  way.  Personally,  I 
dread  its  machine-made  order  and  regimentation, 
and  its  possible  suppression  of  individuality, 
though  the  present  system  also  fatally  suppresses 
the  individual.  But  our  only  defence  against 
socialism  to-day,  if  we  do  fear  it,  is  somehow  to 
prove  that  our  present  system  can  be  so  funda¬ 
mentally  changed  as  better  to  serve  the  individual 
and  common  welfare  than  the  glowing  and  se¬ 
ductive  offers  of  socialism  promise.  Undoubt¬ 
edly  we  are  in  for  large  experimentation  in  the 
direction  of  socialism.  And  we  should  keep  an 
open  mind  towards  all  in  those  experiments  that 
prove  themselves  serviceable  to  the  common  weal. 

But  I  do  not  believe  that  any  theorist  living  has 
discovered  the  final  form  of  a  redeemed  society. 
It  may  take  elements  from  all  our  theories,  but 


FELLOWSHIP  IN  INDUSTRY 


I  SI 

it  will  be  different  from,  and  I  hope  better  than, 
any  one  or  all  of  them. 

Meanwhile,  most  hopeful  experiments  are  be¬ 
ing  made  from  the  other  side — the  side  of  the 
employing  class.  The  parentalism  of  welfare 
work  is  being  largely  abandoned.  It  will  not 
meet  the  needs  of  the  situation  nor  satisfy  the 
aspirations  of  the  masses.  They  want,  not  char¬ 
ity,  but  justice,  not  patronage,  but  democracy. 
And  many  experiments  are  reaching  out  in  the 
direction  of  that  fundamental  social  justice  and 
industrial  democracy. 

They  run  all  the  way  from  Arthur  Nash’s  sim¬ 
ple  application  of  the  Golden  Rule  through  profit- 
sharing,  industrial  partnership  in  the  determina¬ 
tion  of  rules,  hours,  conditions,  the  establishment 
of  constitutional  law  in  the  place  of  the  autocracy 
of  the  employer  or  anarchy  of  opposing  organised 
capital  and  organised  labour,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
relations  of  certain  clothing  industries  with  the 
amalgamated  clothiers’  union,  with  its  covenants 
and  courts  of  arbitration,  up  to  systems  of  pure 
industrial  democracy.  There  are  scores  and  hun¬ 
dreds  of  such  experiments  going  on,  especially 
here  and  in  England. 

It  is  like  the  construction  of  a  tunnel.  The 
social  reformers  are  boring  in  from  one  end,  and 
the  enlightened  employers  from  the  other.  Some 
day  they  will  meet,  and  a  better,  more  workable, 


152 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


more  Christian  system  of  industry  will  be  estab¬ 
lished.  It  is  the  duty  of  all  interested  in  that 
consummation  to  study  intelligently  and  with 
open  mind  the  experiments  and  theories  being 
tried  out,  and  give  the  utmost  of  his  aid  when¬ 
ever  opportunity  offers,  and  his  judgment  com¬ 
mends. 

Meanwhile,  let  us  keep  ever  before  us  the  vision 
of  a  Christianised  order  of  industry.  As  I  see 
it,  it  is  characterised  by  these  essential  notes, 
the  supremacy  of  the  service  motive  over  the  profit 
motive  as  its  driving  power,  and  the  substitution 
of  the  co-operation  of  all  with  all  for  the  com¬ 
mon  weal,  in  place  of  the  competition  of  each 
with  each  for  private  advantage. 

No  fairer  or  more  adequate  picture  of  that  ideal 
can  be  imagined  than  that  set  forth  in  St.  Paul’s 
apologue  of  the  body  of  Christ  and  its  members. 
In  that  body  there  is  no  dead  uniformity  of  func¬ 
tion,  position  or  honour.  Each  member  has  its 
place  and  service,  some  lowdy,  some  lofty,  as 
measured  by  the  commonly  accepted  standards. 
But  they  are  all  fused  into  unity,  first  by  absolute 
mutual  interdependence  in  the  service  of  each 
other  and  the  one  body  of  which  they  are  all 
equally  members ;  and  second,  by  a  common  sym¬ 
pathetic  nervous  system. 

There  can  be  no  arrogance  of  high  position. 
“The  eye  cannot  say  unto  the  hand,  I  have  no 
need  of  thee.”  Neither  can  there  be  any  despair 


FELLOWSHIP  IN  INDUSTRY 


153 


of  low  position.  “The  foot  cannot  say,  because 
I  am  not  the  hand,  I  am  not  of  the  body/'  All 
are  equally  necessary,  and  the  measure  of  dignity 
and  honour  is  precisely  the  measure  of  usefulness 
of  function  and  of  the  worth  of  service  rendered. 
The  less  comely  parts  have  frequently  more 
abundant  honour  because  they  render  the  more 
abundant  service. 

Such  a  society  could  easily  dispense  with,  and 
probably  will,  its  idlers  and  parasites,  however 
esteemed  they  may  be  to-day,  but  it  will  cherish 
chiefly  its  actual  producers  and  servants  whether 
they  be  horny  handed  toilers  or  efficient  captains 
of  industry. 

And  then  there  shall  be  a  sympathetic  nervous 
system  knitting  into  community  of  sensation  our 
now  sadly  divided  society.  We  shall  no'  longer, 
for  instance,  ignorantly  curse  the  coal  miner 
when  he  strikes  and  then  ignore  the  almost  daily 
tragic  record  of  his  supreme  sacrifice,  wherein  he 
is  constantly  laying  down  his  life  that  we  may 
be  warmed  and  served. 

“For  there  shall  be  no  schism  in  the  body,  but 
the  members  shall  have  the  same  care  one  for 
another.  And  whether  one  member  suffer,  even 
the  lowliest  and  most  remote,  all  members  shall 
suffer  with  it;  or  one  member  be  honoured,  even 
the  highest,  for  service  rendered  to  all,  all  the 
members  shall  rejoice  with  it.” 

That  is  the  Christian  vision  of  an  ideal  so- 


154 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


ciety,  functional  rather  than  acquisitive.  That 
is  what  fellowship  means  to  the  Christian.  “Ye 
are  the  body  of  Christ  and  members  in  particular.” 
God  speed  the  realisation  of  that  vision. 


LECTURE  V 


FELLOWSHIP  AMONG  THE  CHURCHES  * 

I  KNOW  in  a  general  way  what  the  writer 
of  the  preceding  chapters  thought  upon  this 
subject.  My  knowledge  is  based,  however, 
more  upon  what  he  did  than  upon  what  he  said. 
To  live  in  fellowship  with  all  in  whom  are  to  be 
found  the  mind  of  Christ  and  the  will  to  do  His 
will,  regardless  of  ecclesiastical  and  theological 
differences,  he  regarded,  not  only  as  a  duty,  but 
as  a  great  privilege.  And  he  did  it  to  an  extent 
beyond  that  which  I  have  ever  known  any  other 
man  to  do. 

He  was  loyal  to  his  Church.  He  never  sought 
fellowship  with  men  of  other  communions 
through  compromise,  or  by  giving  the  impression 
that  he  held  lightly  or  loosely  the  things  for 
which  he  was  supposed  to  stand. 

He  was  eager  to  give  his  best  to  others,  and  in 
return  to  receive  their  best  from  them. 

He  believed  that  it  is  only  through  fellowship 
among  the  Churches  that  the  misunderstandings 
and  prejudices  which  are  keeping  them  apart 

*By  Samuel  S.  Marquis,  D.D. 

155 


!56  THE  gospel  of  fellowship 


are  ever  to  be  done  away.  It  is  only  through 
fellowship  as  a  medium  of  exchange  that  each 
will  be  able  to  receive  from  all  the  rest  that  which 
will  round  out  its  own  life  and  worship  and  in 
the  end  fit  it  for  a  place  in  a  larger  communion 
worthy  of  the  name  of  the  Church  of  Christ. 

The  title  which  he  gave  this  chapter  is  sig¬ 
nificant.  It  was  his  intention — judging  from  the 
few  brief  notes  which  he  had  jotted  down — to 
deal  here  with  the  subject  of  Church  Unity.  But 
his  approach  to  that  subject  was  to  have  been 
through  fellowship.  Before  organic,  doctrinal, 
or  any  other  kind  of  unity  may  be  even  thought 
of,  there  must  be  established  fellowship  among 
the  Churches.  First  things  must  be  done  first, 
and  fellowship  among  the  Churches  must  precede 
unity. 

But  there  was,  as  he  saw  it,  a  step  even  before 
this.  Leading  to  fellowship  among  the  Churches 
there  must  first  be  established  a  fellowship  in 
friendly,  unofficial  groups  of  men  coming  to¬ 
gether,  not  to  discuss  matters  of  religion,  nor  to 
lay  out  a  plan  for  unity,  but  to  render  an  im¬ 
mediate  service  to'  society  in  the  name  of  the 
common  Master.  He  refers  to  these  groups  as 
the  leaven  which  is  to  leaven  the  whole  lump. 
More  significantly  he  calls  them  ganglia,  nerve 
centres  in  our  divided  body  of  humanity.  Permit 
me  to  restate  what  he  said  in  his  first  lecture  in 
regard  to  this  matter. 


AMONG  THE  CHURCHES 


*5Z 

“Gur  paramount  need,”  he  declares,  “is  realisa¬ 
tion  of  fellowship.”  And  then  he  goes  on  to  ask, 
“How  shall  it  be  achieved?  There  are  great 
and  far-reaching  schemes  proposed,  Leagues  of 
Nations,  various  varieties  of  socialism,  plans  for 
the  wholesale  democratisation  of  industry,  fed¬ 
eration  of  churches  for  common  action,  with 
farther-reaching  attempts  at  organic  unity  in  faith 
and  order.  These  all  deserve  our  study  and  sup¬ 
port  according  as  their  merits  commend  them¬ 
selves  to  our  judgments.  But  I  am  convinced 
(italics  mine)  that  real  fellowship  must  be 
reached  in  another  way.  It  cannot  be  imposed 
mechanically  from  above  on  those  below,  or 
from  without  on  those  within.  It  is  a 
thing  of  the  spirit  and  not  of  external 
devices,  and  to  that  end  we  need  every¬ 
where  the  formation  of  voluntary  groups 
united  in  devotion  to  common  causes  who  shall 
act  as  ganglia,  nerve  centres  of  fellowship  in  our 
sadly  divided  body  of  humanity,  centres  of  salt 
and  leaven  which  shall  gradually  permeate  the 
whole  mass  with  their  own  spirit  of  fellowship.” 

Out  of  this  fellowship  within  small  groups  de¬ 
voted  to  service  he  believed  there  would  come  in 
time  a  wider,  more  comprehensive  fellowship 
among  the  churches,  and  on  this  in  turn  would 
rise  ultimately  a  Church  united  in  the  common 
task  of  establishing  a  new  social  order,  the  King¬ 
dom  of  God  on  earth. 


158  THE  gospel  of  fellowship 


So  far,  it  is  his  idea  that  I  have  been  trying 
briefly  to  present.  How  he  would  have  developed 
that  idea,  I  do  not  know;  and  not  knowing  how 
he  would  have  proceeded  I  will  not  attempt  to 
give  even  an  outline  of  that  which,  in  my  opinion, 
he  would  have  said,  or  to  build  up  out  of  my  own 
imagination  the  structure  which  he  might  have 
reared  on  the  foundations  laid  down.  From  this 
point  on  I  must  proceed  in  my  own  way  with  the 
understanding  that  he  is  not  to  be  held  ac¬ 
countable  for  anything  I  may  say.  I  shall  ad¬ 
vance  ideas  with  which,  it  is  my  opinion,  he 
would  not  altogether  agree.  Death  has  sealed 
his  lips  so  that  if  I  were  to  presume  to  speak  for 
him  he  never  could  correct  any  wrong  impres¬ 
sion  I  might  leave.  Therefore,  for  what  follows, 
let  it  be  understood  that  I  alone  am  responsible. 

The  proper  symbol  of  the  visible  Church  of 
Christ,  to-day,  is  the  cup  of  fellowship  broken 
into  a  multitude  of  fragments.  There  it  lies  as 
it  fell  from  the  hands  of  the  Church  drunk  with 
the  power  of  this  world,  the  blood  it  contained — 
symbol  of  brotherhood,  service,  and  sacrifice — 
spilled  upon  the  ground  and  trampled  under  foot 
by  men  mad  and  raving  at  one  another  about 
creeds  and  holy  orders  and  forms  of  ecclesiastical 
organisation.  And  now  that  the  orgy  is  passing 
and  the  Church  is  coming  to  herself,  she  discov¬ 
ers  that  she  is  paralysed,  helpless  before  the  great 


AMONG  THE  CHURCHES 


159 


tasks  which  confront  her,  an  object  of  scorn  and 
derision,  a  jest  and  by-word  in  the  mouths  of 
her  exulting  enemies.  And  the  Church  is 
ashamed  of  herself.  That  is  the  one  outstanding, 
hopeful  sign  in  this  whole  deplorable  business. 
It  begins  to  look  as  if  she  will  repent  and  return 
to  the  Master  whom,  in  her  pride,  ignorance, 
worldly  ambition  and  selfishness,  she  has  been 
crucifying  all  these  centuries. 

In  the  night  in  which  He  was  first  betrayed, 
Christ  took  the  cup  of  fellowship,  and  when  He 
had  blessed  it,  He  gave  it  to  His  disciples.  They 
took  it  and  made  it  the  supreme  symbol  of  their 
brotherhood.  They  passed  it  from  one  to  an¬ 
other.  Time  went  on,  and  the  Brotherhood  grew. 
Into  it  came  men  of  every  nation,  men  who  had 
misunderstood  and  hated  one  another  because  of 
differences  in  nationality,  race  and  religion.  But 
the  cup  of  fellowship  passed  from  lip  to  lip; 
they  drank  from  it,  and  in  drinking  forgot  the 
things  which  had  divided  them,  and  lived  together 
in  the  unity  of  His  spirit,  the  bond  of  peace,  and 
in  righteousness  of  life. 

Years  went  by  in  which  the  Brotherhood  met 
its  trials  and  temptations.  But  the  bond  of  unity 
— fellowship  in  Christ,  devotion  to  Him  and  the 
thing  for  which  He  stood — held.  It  was  strained 
to  the  breaking  point  at  times  by  those  to  whom 
theories  about  their  Master  meant  more  than  the 
Master  Himself,  and  to  whom  interpretations  of 


!6o  the  gospel  of  fellowship 

Truth  meant  more  than  the  Truth.  There  have 
always  been  such,  perhaps  always  will  be,  but 
the  world  is  finding  them  out,  is  becoming  very 
weary  of  them,  and  is  learning  to  ignore  them. 

But  finally  the  Church  was  led  up  into  the 
wilderness  to  meet  a  new  temptation.  Hitherto 
despised  and  persecuted,  it  suddenly  awakened  to 
find  itself  politically  recognised  and  the  recipient 
of  the  allegiance  and  flattery  of  an  emperor.  Per¬ 
haps  the  conversion  of  Constantine  was  genuine. 
But  the  man  who  made  of  the  Cross  an  imperial 
symbol  and  a  military  standard  could  not,  so  it 
has  always  seemed  to  me,  have  seen  very  far  into 
what  was  in  the  heart  and  mind  of  the  Man  of 
Nazareth,  nor  have  sensed  very  deeply  the  mean¬ 
ing  of  the  Cross  on  which  He  was  crucified. 

I  am  inclined  to  think  that  Constantine’s  sudden 
espousal  of  the  Church  was  not  altogether  devoid 
of  political  sagacity  and  purpose.  The  signs  of 
decay  were  in  his  Empire.  He  needed  a  new, 
strong  bond  to  hold  it  together.  He  looked 
about,  and  his  eyes  lighted  on  this  hitherto 
despised  and  yet  feared  Christian  Brotherhood. 
There  it  was  like  so  many  ganglia  of  fellowship 
in  the  crumbling  body  of  the  Empire  holding  to¬ 
gether  men  of  all  races  and  classes,  high  and  low, 
rich  and  poor,  bond  and  free.  Its  unity  and  sol¬ 
idarity,  in  spite  of  the  doctrinal  differences  which 
had  begun  to  show  in  it,  were  impressive.  It  was 
the  one  and  only  bond  in  sight  which  might  be 


AMONG  THE  CHURCHES  j6i 

made  to  do  political  service  and  hold  the  Empire 
together  a  little  while  longer.  He  would  enlist 
its  aid  and  in  turn  give  it  the  use  of  his  sword  in 
its  effort  to  maintain  its  unity — so  it  has  seemed 
to  me. 

But  be  this  as  it  may,  the  fact  remains  that 
Constantine  took  the  Church  up  into  an  exceeding 
high  mountain  and  showed  her  the  kingdoms  of 
the  earth.  A  vast  empire,  the  whole  of  the 
known  world,  lay  spread  out  at  her  feet.  That 
she  could  have,  if  only  she  would  consent  to  add 
to  the  spiritual  forces  which  held  her  together 
those  secular  forces  which  bind  the  peoples  of 
empires  into  one.  lit  was  the  vision  of  a  great 
partnership — the  union  of  sword  and  spirit. 
What  could  not  be  achieved  if  it  were  to  be  en¬ 
tered  into?  Here  was  the  world  literally  throw¬ 
ing  itself  at  the  feet  of  Christ.  So  it  seemed. 
But  in  addition  to  itself,  the  world  also  offered 
its  sword.  Without  that  it  would  not  give  itself 
up.  It  was  a  great  temptation.  The  Church  fell. 
It  took  the  world  on  its  own  terms — might, 
majesty,  dominion  and  power,  sword  and  all. 

Gradually  the  inward  bond  of  fellowship  which 
had  held  the  Church  together  gave  way,  and 
there  were  substituted  the  outward  bands  of  secu¬ 
lar  organisation,  law,  authority,  and  enforced 
submission,  with  the  result  that  there  followed 
a  constrained  artificial  unity  of  life,  and  a  simu¬ 
lated  unity  of  belief. 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


162 

Fellowship,  such  as  bound  the  Church  together 
in  the  beginning,  is  a  centripetal  force,  lit  draws 
toward  a  common  centre.  Secular  forces  which 
seek  to  compel  unity  invariably  work  in  the  op¬ 
posite  way  from  that  intended,  that  is,  they  be¬ 
come  centrifugal.  They  keep  things  in  bounds 
for  a  time,  just  as  sitting  on  the  safety  valve 
keeps  for  a  time  steam  in  the  boiler  that  would 
otherwise  get  away.  And  just  as  sitting  on  the 
safety  valve  ends  in  a  sudden  outward  movement 
of  that  which  is  within,  in  an  explosion,  so  is  any 
organisation,  secular  or  religious,  bound  to  go  to 
pieces  in  time,  if  the  principle  of  unity  in  it  is 
suppression  rather  than  expression.  The  church 
managed  to  sit  on  the  safety  valve  for  a  thousand 
years  after  the  Empire  went  down.  Then  the 
explosion  came.  It  was  inevitable.  It  was  due 
not  to  external  forces,  but  to  internal  pressure. 
God  so  made  the  mind  and  conscience  of  man  that 
in  order  to  function  properly  they  must  be  free, 
and  the  church  or  state  that  sits  too  long  on  the 
mental  or  moral  safety-valve  of  its  people,  is 
going  to  go  to-  pieces.  And  the  longer  it  sits 
there,  the  more  terrific  the  explosion  when  it 
comes,  and  the  greater  the  number  of  fragments 
to  which  it  will  be  reduced.  The  Church  went  to 
pieces,  the  lines  of  fracture  following  first  the 
boundary  lines  of  nations  and  peoples,  and  then 
continued  along  other  lines,  political,  intellectual, 


AMONG  THE  CHURCHES  163 

and  temperamental,  until  the  Church  lay  a  mass 
of  fragments. 

And  at  that  time  the  cup  of  fellowship,  which 
had  long  since  lost  its  original  meaning,  was  also 
broken.  Christian  fellowship  for  a  time  at  least 
disappeared  from  the  earth.  My  Roman  brother 
will  not  put  his  cup  to  my  lips,  and  I  will  not  put 
mine  to  his  until  after  he  has  renounced  his 
allegiance  to  the  fragment  of  the  Church  to  which 
he  adheres.  And  the  same  unbrotherly  attitude 
existed  till  recently — still  exists  in  some  instances 
— among  the  Protestant  communions  in  their  re¬ 
lations  to  one  another. 

And  SO'  the  broken  cup  of  fellowship,  whose 
fragments  have  been  fashioned  into  many  little, 
unbrotherly,  exclusive,  sectarian  cups,  is  the  sym¬ 
bol  of  the  Church  as  it  stands  before  the  world 
to-day. 

A  divided  Church  is  a  contradiction  of  the  very 
Gospel  which  it  claims  to*  exemplify,  and  for  the 
preaching  of  which  it  "claims  to<  hold  a  divine 
commission.  It  is  worse  than  that,  being  a  libel 
on  the  name  of  Christ  whose  supreme  and  cen¬ 
tral  aim  was  the  establishment  of  a  new  order,  a 
Kingdom  of  God  on  earth,  the  divine  distinguish¬ 
ing  characteristics  of  which  were  to  be  unity  and 
fellowship.  Instead  of  standing  for  unity  and 
fellowship,  love  and  service,  the  Church  has  come 
o  be  only  another  name  for  division  and  strife. 


164  THE  gospel  of  fellowship 


There  is  an  ever-increasing  number  of  men 
in  the  churches  who  are  becoming  more  and  more 
ashamed  of  their  divisions.  The  yearning  for 
one  great  household,  in  which  the  Gospel  of 
Jesus  Christ  will  be  exemplified  as  well  as  taught, 
is  increasing.  We  are  becoming  keenly  aware 
of  the  fact  that  our  divisions  are  hampering  the 
spread  of  the  Kingdom  at  home  and  abroad.  No 
right  minded  man  can  feel  any  great  enthusiasm 
in  converting  the  heathen  to  this  or  that  par¬ 
ticular  kind  of  denominational  ecclesiasticism, 
creed  or  worship.  We  are  coming  to  see  that 
making  disciples  of  the  nations  for  Him  is  one 
thing,  and  making  disciples  of  this  or  that  little 
group  within  the  nations  for  this  or  that  particu¬ 
lar  fragment  of  the  Church  is  quite  another.  It 
may  in  the  end  prove  a  hindrance  rather  than  a 
help  in  attaining  the  great  objective.  Certainly 
we  are  doing  much  that  must  ultimately  be  un¬ 
done. 

Our  divisions  are  wasteful  of  time,  energy  and 
money.  Thousands  of  communities  are  over¬ 
churched  and  religiously  undernourished.  The 
two,  as  a  rule,  go  together.  The  divided  Church, 
from  a  business  point  of  view,  is  the  most  ridicu¬ 
lous  institution  on  earth.  It  is  no  wonder  that 
its  financial  problem  is  always  uppermost.  It  is 
a  marvel  that  intelligent  men  continue  to  support 
it  at  all  in  view  of  its  wastefulness  through  du¬ 
plication  of  effort  and  investment. 


AMONG  THE  CHURCHES  165 

The  very  fact  that  we  have  so  many  denomina¬ 
tions  is,  in  itself,  the  best  evidence  we  have  that 
no  one  of  them  is  by  itself  able  to  minister  to 
all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men.  The  divisions 
into  which  we  are  fallen  should  be  proof  sufficient 
to  any  sane  man  that  uniformity  in  belief,  order, 
and  form  of  worship  is  impossible,  even  if  it 
were  desirable,  and  that  fellowship  in  Christ, 
in  which  allowance  is  made  for  wide  differences 
in  creed,  organisation,  and  expression  of  worship, 
is  the  only  basis  of  unity. 

But  that  which  shames  us  more  than  anything 
else  is  that  our  divisions  render  us  impotent  in  the 
face  of  the  great  social,  moral,  and  political  prob¬ 
lems  which  confront  us  in  this  age.  The  Church 
speaks  with  no  certain  voice,  because  it  has  no 
one  voice  with  which  to  speak.  Having  many 
minds  and  wills,  it  can  bring  no  one  thought  and 
will  to  bear  on  the  great  issues  of  the  day.  The 
influence  of  the  Church  in  the  World  War  was 
practically  nil.  Ht  stood  by  and  helplessly  watched 
the  nations  spring  at  one  another’s  throats.  Here 
and  there,  some  fragment  of  the  Church  put  up 
a  weak  protest  which  was  drowned  in  the  thun¬ 
der  of  the  guns,  or  contemptuously  brushed  aside 
by  the  leaders  of  the  warring  nations.  It  was 
given  to  understand  that  war  is  a  game  for  skilled 
politicians,  not  for  inexperienced  ecclesiastics. 
Any  talk  of  peace,  or  the  expression  of  any 
thought  other  than  that  the  war  was  a  holy  war 


1 66  THE  gospel  of  fellowship 

with  right  and  humanity  all  on  our  side,  we  were 
told  would  weaken  the  morale  of  the  people  at 
home  and  the  troops  at  the  front.  And  so  the 
Church,  having  no  mind  or  will  of  its  own,  did 
as  it  was  told.  Divided  and  arrayed  against  it¬ 
self,  it  stood  back  of  both  sides  of  the  battle 
line.  Having  no  voice  of  its  own,  it  spoke  with 
two  voices,  one  blessing  what  the  other  cursed, 
and  the  other  cursing  what  the  one  blessed.  Up 
to'  the  throne  of  God  went  these  two  voices  of 
the  Church,  each  declaring  its  cause  to  be  just, 
and  each  asking  that  God  would  confound  and 
bring  to  naught  the  efforts  of  the  other.  No 
wonder  the  heathen  world  looked  with  scorn  and 
contempt  on  a  Church  which  had  been  coming 
to  it  preaching  peace  and  brotherhood,  but  which 
now  stood  divided  against  itself  and  speaking 
impassioned  words  of  encouragement  to  men  who 
were  using  the  most  devilish  and  destructive 
means  for  destroying  each  other  ever  devised. 

Shorn  of  power,  the  Church  stood  with  neither 
will  nor  voice  in  that  most  terrible  hour  in  the 
world’s  history.  The  War  was  planned  and 
fought  just  as  if  there  had  been  no  Church  of 
Christ  in  the  world.  It  made  not  the  slightest 
difference  except,  perhaps,  in  one  particular.  It 
may  be  due  to  the  influence  of  the  Church  that 
certain  works  of  mercy  were  carried  on.  It  got 
out  the  ambulances  and  picked  up  the  human 


AMONG  THE  CHURCHES 


167 

wrecks  which  war  leaves  in  its  wake.  This  the 
Church  helped  to  do,  and  came,  after  a  while,  to 
regard  this  as  about  all  it  could  do,  or  all  it  was 
ever  meant  to  do. 

Weak  and  fearful,  it  performed  another  func¬ 
tion.  Together  with  a  ham-strung  press  it  helped 
put  over  the  propaganda  the  war  lords  and  poli¬ 
ticians  decreed  should  be  put  over.  This  it  did 
on  both  sides  of  the  battle  line,  the  one  side  con¬ 
tradicting  the  other.  Both  could  not  have  been 
telling  the  truth.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  both  sides 
for  the  sake  of  morale  at  home  and  in  the 
trenches,  and  in  the  name  of  patriotism,  con¬ 
sciously  or  unconsciously  lied.  And  on  both 
sides  of  the  line  the  divided  Church  denounced 
the  men  who  dared  stand  up  in  the  pulpit  and 
speak  the  mind  of  Christ.  And  so  long  as  it 
continues  in  its  present  divided,  helpless  condi¬ 
tion,  so  long  will  the  Church  do  the  bidding  of 
the  powers  of  this  world. 

Only  when  it  finds  its  voice  and  will  in  the 
unity  of  fellowship  will  it  begin  to  make  the  in¬ 
fluence  of  Christ  felt  in  the  councils  of  the  nations. 
Then,  and  not  till  then,  will  the  world  come  to 
see  that  the  most  radical  book  ever  written  is 
the  New  Testament,  and  that  the  greatest  foe 
of  this  present  order  is  the  man  who  believes, 
not  in  this  or  that  fragment  of  a  broken  Church, 
or  in  this  or  that  creed  or  system  of  theology, 


1 6 8  THE  gospel  of  fellowship 

but  who  believes  in  a  very  personal  and  intimate 
fashion  in  Jesus  Christ  and  the  things  for  which 
He  stood. 

We  speak  of  the  divisions  in  the  Church  as  a 
sin.  Speaking  superficially  that  is  true.  When 
one  comes  to  look  more  deeply  into  the  matter, 
however,  he  finds  that  it  is  not  true.  We  often 
speak  of  the  eruptions  that  appear  on  the  skin 
as  a  disease,  whereas  these  eruptions  are  but  the 
symptoms  of  a  much  deeper  seated  disorder.  So 
with  our  divisions.  These  are  not  the  root  sin  or 
disease  which  must  be  eradicated,  but  only  the 
symptoms  of  it.  Remove  the  cause  and  the 
symptoms  will  disappear  of  themselves.  The 
real  sin  back  of  our  divisions,  and  of  which  our 
divisions  are  but  the  surface  manifestations,  is 
the  sin  which  the  Church  committed  when  she 
gave  up  fellowship  as  the  basis  of  her  unity,  and 
substituted  therefor  the  impossible  principle  of 
unity — the  unity  of  faith  and  order  maintained 
by  a  combination  of  ecclesiastical  authority  and 
secular  power.  There  is  the  root  sin  in  the  mat¬ 
ter.  There  is  the  seed  of  the  divisions  which 
came  later — which  were  bound  to  come  and  in  the 
long  stretches  of  history  are  to  be  regarded  as  a 
blessing,  in  the  sense  that  pain  is  a  blessing  when 
it  comes  as  a  warning  of  a  disease  which  is  slowly 
but  surely  robbing  us  of  our  life  and  strength. 

But  be  all  this  as  it  may,  the  fact  that  con¬ 
cerns  us  apart  from  all  theories  as  to  how  it  came 


AMONG  THE  CHURCHES 


169 

to  be,  is  the  fact  of  our  divisions.  We  know  that 
they  are  the  ugly,  repulsive  eruptions  of  a  deep- 
seated,  destroying  disease,  and  we  are  ashamed 
of  them.  And  we  are  becoming  quite  sensitive 
as  to  our  appearance.  We  know  these  sectarian 
eruptions  on  the  body  of  the  Church  are  not 
becoming.  They  are  proving  more  and  more 
offensive  to  an  increasing  number  of  people.  We 
would  be  glad  to  be  rid  of  them. 

And  right  here  we  need  to  pause  and  consider 
just  what  it  is  we  really  do  want.  The  danger 
is  that  we  attempt  a  cure  by  attacking  the  symp¬ 
toms  rather  than  the  disease.  The  danger  is  that 
we  shall  be  content  with  some  surface  treatment 
of  our  divisions,  some  method  of  salving  them 
over  so  as  to  make  them  less  conspicuous,  while 
leaving  the  real  root  of  the  disease  untouched. 

All  sorts  of  surface  remedies  are  proposed. 
Rome  knows  and  offers  but  one  panacea — submis¬ 
sion  to  her  authority.  The  Anglican  thinks  of 
himself  as  living  in  a  sort  of  half-way  house  built 
across  the  road,  with  the  front  and  back  doors 
wide  open.  Under  his  roof  he  would  like  to 
play  the  role  of  the  generous  host,  meeting  as  it 
were  at  one  grand  ecclesiastical  reception  and 
home-coming  Rome  on  the  one  hand,  and  the 
dissenting  Protestant  bodies  on  the  other.  Each 
could  enter  his  house,  as  he  conceives  it,  with  but 
slight  sacrifice  of  his  social  standing  and  ecclesias¬ 
tical  prerogatives.  Just  who  would  come  into  the 


170 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


Anglican  half-way  house  through  the  front  door, 
and  who'  would  be  expected  to  come  in  through 
the  rear,  is  not  made  clear  in  the  invitations. 
Rome  has  politely  and  positively  declined  the 
invitation.  The  Protestant  denominations  are 
still  reading  the  invitation,  and  occasionally  sug¬ 
gesting  that  some  change  in  the  phraseology  of 
it  might  make  it  possible  for  them  to  accept  it. 

Meantime,  others  are  suggesting  that  inas¬ 
much  as  unity  under  Rome  or  Canterbury  is  not 
even  a  remote  possibility,  some  sort  of  an  as¬ 
sociation  or  federation  should  be  entered  into 
with  a  view  to  rendering  a  service  which  other¬ 
wise  could  not  be  rendered  by  the  divided  Church 
at  this  time.  These  invitations  have  met  with 
encouraging  response. 

Others  are  suggesting  that  the  way  to  solve  the 
problem  is  to  find  the  greatest  common  divisor 
of  what  each  holds  as  essential  in  belief  and  wor¬ 
ship  and  make  that  the  basis  for  a  sort  of  unity 
based  on  universal  compromise. 

Others  seem  to  be  disposed  to  let  the  disease 
of  schism  run  its  course.  In  that  case  one  of 
two  things  will  happen.  The  weaker  churches 
will  go  to  the  wall,  and  we  will  have  in  the  end  a 
Church  that  has  survived  because  it  has  proved 
itself  worthy.  Or  else  there  will  come  about  a 
natural  process  of  amalgamation  and  assimila¬ 
tion,  leading  ultimately  to  an  organic  unity. 
Those  Churches  most  nearly  related  will  come  to- 


AMONG  THE  CHURCHES 


1 71 

gather  first.  Small  centres  of  unity  will  thus  be 
formed  which  in  turn  will  come  together  until 
finally,  much  as  one  shuts  up  a  telescope,  all  that 
which  has  been  drawn  out  by  schism  will  have 
returned  within  the  fold  of  the  largest  and  most 
powerful  group. 

It  does  not  matter  which  road  to  unity  we 
travel,  or  which  guide  we  follow,  the  barriers  to 
be  met  and  overcome  are  practically  the  same  on 
all  roads. 

In  the  first  place  one  will  find  in  addition  to 
those  to  whom  the  question  of  unity  is  a  mat¬ 
ter  of  indifference  that  there  are  thousands  who 
really  prefer  things  as  they  are.  They  believe 
that  division,  in  that  it  engenders  rivalry  and 
competition  in  the  spread  of  the  gospel,  is  a  good 
thing. 

There  are  also  the  difficulties  to  be  overcome 
which  grow  out  of  the  fact  that  some  demand  a 
liturgical  service,  while  others  find  spiritual  up¬ 
lift  and  satisfaction  only  in  the  non-liturgical 
form  of  worship. 

Some  depend  almost  entirely  on  the  spiritual 
nourishment  of  the  sacraments,  while  others  feed 
almost  entirely  on  the  written  and  spoken  Word 
of  God. 

Some  emphasise  creed,  while  others  lay  all  the 
stress  on  conduct.  Some  want  to  feel  that  they 
are  guided  by  the  authority  of  a  ministry  that 
has  come  down  from  the  Apostles,  while  others 


172 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


demand  liberty  of  thought  and  conscience  and 
prefer  to  trust  to  the  guidance  of  the  Spirit  which, 
as  they  believe,  is  not  limited  in  its  operations 
to  the  historic  episcopate,  or  to  any  particular 
kind  of  ecclesiastical  organisation,  or  to  any 
fixed  creedal  track,  or  to  any  particular  sacra¬ 
mental  theory  or  practice.  There  are  many  other 
obstacles  of  less  importance. 

The  most  formidable  of  all  the  barriers  to 
Church  Unity  seem  to  me  to  be  man-made.  I 
would  say,  therefore,  that  the  way  leads  round 
them,  not  over  them  nor  through  them.  I  wish 
to  speak  more  in  detail  of  some  of  these. 

First,  perhaps  the  biggest  barrier  of  all  is  in 
ecclesiastical  organisation  and  orders.  We  are 
met  here  with  the  claim  of  Rome  and  Canter¬ 
bury  that  the  plan  for  the  organisation  of  thej 
Church  was  definitely  outlined  by  Christ  Him¬ 
self,  and  that  the  orders  of  the  ministry  therein 
were  set  up  and  empowered  by  Him,  and  that 
any  other  form  of  organisation  or  ministry  is  not 
valid,  and,  therefore,  cannot  impart  the  blessings 
of  Christ  and  His  religion. 

To  that  I  would  say,  in  the  first  place,  that 
Jesus  came  preaching  the  Kingdom,  or  order  of 
God  on  earth.  The  Kingdom  was  the  central 
theme  in  all  His  teaching.  'It  was  this  that  He 
came  to  establish,  and  not  a  church  in  the  sense 
that  we  have  come  to  understand  the  meaning 
of  that  term.  That  there  should  have  come  some 


AMONG  THE  CHURCHES 


173 


kind  of  organised  effort  on  the  part  of  His  disci¬ 
ples  to  carry  on  His  work  for  the  realisation  of 
the  Kingdom,  was  inevitable.  This  He  seems 
to  have  taken  for  granted.  If  He  was  interested 
in  having  any  particular  kind  of  organisation  car¬ 
ried  out,  we  have  no  evidence  of  it.  If  He  gave 
any  directions  as  to  the  offices  to  be  created  there¬ 
in,  their  functions,  and  their  grades  with  respect 
to  power  and  authority,  there  is  no  record  of  it. 
So  far  as  He  ever  indicated,  His  followers  were 
to  be  bound  together  in  a  simple  and  democratic 
fashion.  The  family,  to  judge  from  His  own 
words,  was  His  model  rather  than  the  Empire  or 
the  Jewish  Church.  His  disciples  were  to  live 
together  as  brethren.  They  were  not  to  have 
lords  and  masters  to  rule  over  them.  Rank,  if 
any,  was  to  be  determined  by  the  amount  of 
service  a  man  rendered  his  brethren.  If  any 
man  would  be  great,  let  him  become  so  by  be¬ 
coming  the  servant  of  all.  The  disciples  were 
not  only  to  go  into  all  the  world  and  preach  the 
new  social  order  based  on  the  Fatherhood  of 
God  and  the  Brotherhood  of  Man,  but  they 
were  to  exemplify  the  relations  which  were  to 
exist  in  that  new  order  in  the  relations  which 
they  held  toward  each  other  in  the  Church  which 
was  to  be  regarded  as  tentative  and  preliminary 
to  the  Kingdom. 

Gradually  the  Church  took  in  the  minds  of 
Christ’s  followers  the  place  of  the  Kingdom. 


m 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


Instead  of  being  the  means  to  an  end,  the  Church 
became  an  end  in  itself.  Instead  of  being  sent 
to  work  out  the  salvation  of  society  here  and 
now,  it  came  to  regard  itself  as  sent  to  save  to  a 
future  life  the  individuals  who  joined  its  ranks. 
The  social  vision  and  the  Kingdom  receded,  and 
the  salvation  of  the  individual  and  the  Church, 
considered  as  an  end  in  itself  came  to  the  front. 

The  relation  of  the  Church  to  the  Kingdom 
I  may  illustrate  in  this  way:  Across  the  street 
from  where  I  am  now  writing  stands  a  beautiful 
temple  erected  for  Jewish  worship.  A  little 
more  than  a  year  ago  there  came  some  workmen 
and  built  upon  the  corner  of  the  lot  where  the 
temple  now  stands,  and  which  was  then  vacant,  a 
little  temporary  structure.  A  few  days  later  ex¬ 
cavations  for  the  foundation  of  the  temple  began. 
It  was  then  that  I  learned  the  character  of  that 
first  little,  temporary  wooden  building.  I  ob¬ 
served  that  every  morning  men  were  lined  up  at 
one  of  its  windows  seeking  employment.  I 
learned  also  that  inside  that  temporary  building 
were  kept  the  plans  and  specifications  of  the 
greater  structure  yet  to  come;  that  it  was  here 
the  architect  met  his  superintendents  and  foremen 
and  explained  to  them,  the  plans  of  the  building; 
that  it  was  here  that  problems  in  construction, 
kinds  of  material,  and  men  for  special  jobs  were 
discussed. 

As  I  looked  out  of  my  window  one  day  at  the 


AMONG  THE  CHURCHES 


175 


larger  building  taking  shape,  and  the  little  wooden 
building,  now  dwarfed  and  insignificant  in  ap¬ 
pearance  standing  by  it,  I  said  to  myself,  “The 
relation  of  the  Church  to  the  Kingdom  is  the 
same  as  that  of  the  little  temporary  building  to 
the  temple  rising  beside  it.  The  little  building 
is  not  an  end,  but  the  means  to  an  end.  So 
the  Church.  The  Church  is  the  house  to  which 
the  workmen  of  the  Kingdom  come  for  orders. 
Here  they  are  hired  in  to  work  for  the  King. 
Here  they  meet  the  great  Architect  and  get 
from  Him  the  vision  of  the  Kingdom  they  are  to 
build.  Here  they  study  plans  and  specifications 
only  to  go  out  and  build  their  visions  into  reali¬ 
ties. ” 

How  foolish  it  would  have  been  for  those  work¬ 
men  to  have  stopped  with  the  workshop  ;  to  have 
said,  “This  is  all  the  master-builder  wants  us  to 
do;  let  us  beautify  and  adorn  this  little  temporary 
building  and  make  out  of  it  a  guild  hall  for  our¬ 
selves,  and  let  it  go  at  that.” 

Yet  that  is  what  we  have  done  with  the 
Church.  We  have  made  of  it  a  substitute  for  the 
bigger  thing — the  Kingdom.  We  have  made  the 
Christian  employment  office  and  chart-house  an 
exclusive  little  guild  hall.  Here,  in  our  eager¬ 
ness  to  save  ourselves,  we  have  forgotten  all  about 
the  commission  to  go  out  and  save  society  through 
the  new  order  of  Christian  Brotherhood. 

I  cant  help  thinking  that  if  we  thought  more 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


of  the  Kingdom  and  less  of  our  little  sectarian 
workshops,  we  would  be  more  likely  to  get  to¬ 
gether  on  the  big  and  main  job.  I  think  we 
would  make  less  of  our  little  religious  trade 
unions  and  the  tools  with  which  we  work,  and 
put  more  emphasis  on  the  kind  and  amount  of 
work  each  is  doing  for  the  building  of  the  King¬ 
dom.  If  I  think  I  have  better  tools  with  which 
to  work  than  a  man  who  comes  from  some  other 
ecclesiastical  tool  house,  the  way  to  prove  it  is  not 
tO'  waste  time  arguing  the  matter,  but  to  go  out 
and  work  side  by  side  with  him  on  the  King’s 
building.  If  my  way  and  my  tools  are  better 
than  his,  he  is  going  to  find  it  out  in  the  fellow¬ 
ship  of  common  labour  in  the  Kingdom. 

And  as  for  membership  in  the  Church  based  on 
acceptance  of  this  or  that  particular  theological 
belief — perhaps  the  closed  shop  in  industry  is 
all  right,  but  of  one  thing  I  feel  very  sure, 
and  that  is  that  Jesus  Christ  never  meant 
the  closed  shop  idea  should  prevail  in  the  building 
of  the  Kingdom.  The  employment  manager  on 
the  building  of  the  temple  across  the  street  did  not 
ask  a  man  applying  for  work  to  subscribe  to  some 
particular  theory  of  mechanics  before  hiring  him 
in.  And  personally  I  think  our  theological  tests 
worked  on  men  seeking  admission  to  the  ranks  of 
those  who  are  working  to  build  the  Kingdom 
are  about  as  absurd,  for  the  most  part,  as  asking 
a  man  to  state  the  law  of  gravitation  and  that 


AMONG  THE  CHURCHES 


177 

governing  the  velocity  of  falling  bodies  before 
allowing  him  to  go  to  work  on  a  building. 

We  keep  alive  our  divisions  because  our  own 
individual  explanation  of  some  fragment  of  Truth 
means  more  to  us  than  the  whole  Truth  itself. 
We  have  the  idea  that  if  a  man  does  not  accept 
our  explanation  of  a  fact,  he  is  denying  the  fact. 
If  facts  did  not  persist  in  spite  of  our  different 
explanations  of  them  there  would  be  very  few,  if 
any,  left.  Two  men  are  looking  at  a  light.  One 
holds  to  the  theory  of  emanation  in  explaining 
how  the  eye  receives  its  sensation  of  light.  The 
other  stands  for  the  wave  theory.  How  foolish 
for  one  to  say  to  the  other,  “If  you  deny  my 
theory  of  light,  then  you  do  not  believe  the  light 
is  shining.”  The  other  may  truthfully  say,  “I 
do  not  deny  the  light.  I  see  it,  as  you  do.  I 
know  it  is  there.  I  walk  by  it.”  So  we  say  to 
millions  of  men  who  want  to  work  with  us  for 
the  Kingdom,  “We  forbid  you  doing  so  until  you 
subscribe  to  the  creed,  rules  and  regulations  of 
our  little  ecclesiastical  trade  union.  It  is  not 
enough  that  you  believe  the  Truth.  You  must 
subscribe  to  our  theories  about  it.” 

We  will  come  to  the  unity  we  long  for  when 
we  make  fellowship  the  basis  of  it;  when  we 
see  that  the  Church  of  Christ  must  be  big  enough 
and  broad  enough  and  Christ-like  enough  to  hold 
all  who  are  able  to  meet  His  test  for  admission — 
that  is,  to  all  who  are  doing,  or  are  honestly  try- 


jy8  THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


mg  to  do  His  will,  and  who  want  the  assistance 
which  one  finds  in  working  in  fellowship  with 
others  at  a  common  task. 

Does  the  rebuke  which  Jesus  administered  to 
St.  John,  when  the  latter  rather  boastfully  told 
of  forbidding  one  to  cast  out  devils  in  the  name 
of  Jesus  because  he  did  not  belong  to  the  disciple 
group,  mean  nothing  to  us  to-day?  Cannot  we 
see  that  the  stinging  reproof  which  Jesus  ad¬ 
ministered  to  the  lawyer  in  the  parable  of  the 
Good  Samaritan  also  applies  to  us?  Here  is  a 
Jew  in  distress.  One  of  his  own  priests,  and 
then  one  of  his  own  Levites,  come  and  look  upon 
him  and  pass  on.  Then  comes  a  man  of  that 
hated  sect,  a  Samaritan,  a  man  all  wrong  in  his 
beliefs,  churchmanship,  and  all  the  rest,  and  min¬ 
isters  to  him  in  trouble.  And  Jesus  forced  the 
admission  from  the  man  who  had  flouted  the  re¬ 
ligion  of  that  Samaritan  all  his  life  that  the 
Samaritan,  regardless  of  his  creed,  was  a  true 
son  of  Abraham  and  a  doer  of  the  will  of  God. 
I  hold  that  any  group  of  men  have  a  right  to  form 
a  religious  organisation  and  lay  down  the  con¬ 
ditions  on  which  a  man  may  obtain  membership 
therein.  They  have  a  right  to  call  such  an  or¬ 
ganisation  Roman,  Anglican,  Lutheran,  Calvinist, 
or  Methodist,  or  by  any  other  name  that  is  de¬ 
scriptive  of  its  peculiar  tenet  of  belief,  but  they 
have  no  right  to  call  it  by  the  name  of  Christ  if 


AMONG  THE  CHURCHES 


179 

they  require  as  a  condition  of  membership  that 
which  Christ  Himself  would  not  require. 

We  say  that  we  want  a  Unity  that  is  Christian, 
but  we  have  injected  into  the  term  “Christian” 
so  much  that  was  not  there  in  the  beginning  and 
left  out  so  much  that  was,  that  we  cannot  agree 
as  to  the  exact  character  of  the  thing  we  want. 
What  is  a  Christian?  ils  he  a  man  living  out  in 
his  individual  life  and  social  relations  the  will  of 
Christ?  Is  he  a  branch  to'  be  judged  by  the  fruit 
he  bears,  or  must  he  in  addition  to  that  be  joined 
to  Christ  through  some  particular  kind  of  theo¬ 
logical  limb? 

Personally  II  think  they  should  be  admitted  to 
the  fellowship  of  Christ’s  religion  who  love  Him, 
are  drawn  to  Him  by  His  character  and  the  great 
ideal  of  the  Kingdom  for  which  He  stood. 

They  are  His  disciples  who  are  striving  to  do 
His  will,  who  are  filled  with  His  passion  for 
service,  and  who1  put,  not  the  Church,  but  the 
Kingdom  of  God  first. 

The  unity  of  fellowship,  resting  on  the  will  to 
do  His  will,  is  the  only  unity  that  I  can  see,  big 
enough  to  be  called  Christian.  No  unity  based  on 
faith  and  order  and  ecclesiastical  organisation  can 
be  made  inclusive  enough  to  allow  for  that  diver¬ 
sity  of  religious  life,  thought,  and  expression 
which  must  be  given  the  religion  of  Jesus  if  it 
is  ever  to'  meet  the  needs  of  all. 


!8o  the  gospel  of  fellowship 


As  to  the  orders  of  the  ministry  in  the  early 
Church,  they  would  have  been  none  other  than 
they  were  if  they  had  followed  a  natural  process 
of  evolution.  Each  order  arose  to  meet  a  need, 
and  was  not,  so  far  as  the  evidence  goes,  insti¬ 
tuted  simply  to<  conform  to  a  previously  worked- 
out  plan  of  organisation.  Had  there  been  no 
need  for  the  services  of  the  seven  deacons  in  the 
Church  of  Jerusalem  I  cannot  conceive  of  their 
having  been  selected  and  set  apart  as  an  ecclesias¬ 
tical  ornament,  or  to  complete  a  prescribed  form 
of  organisation.  If  anything  is  clear,  it  is  that 
they  were  called  to  meet  a  human  need.  Had 
there  been  other  needs  as  pressing  as  those  which 
called  for  Apostles  to  spread  the  knowledge  of 
the  Kingdom  throughout  the  world,  or  which 
called  for  overseers  or  bishops  to  administer  the 
affairs  of  the  Church  in  any  given  city  or  district, 
or  which  called  for  elders  to  teach,  and  social  ser¬ 
vice  workers,  deacons  and  deaconesses,  to  min¬ 
ister  to  the  poor  and  sick,  I  think  there  would 
have  been  other  orders  developed  to  meet  these 
needs  just  as  divine  in  their  institution  as  those 
which  already  existed.  There  is  a  value  attached 
to  the  historical  continuity  of  the  Church’s  form 
of  government  which  I  can  appreciate.  The 
necessity  for  organisation  I  can  see,  but  I  cannot 
conceive  of  the  life  of  the  Church  and  the  opera¬ 
tion  of  the  Spirit  of  God  so  tied  to  any  order  as 
to  make  it  impossible  for  that  life  to  continue, 


AMONG  THE  CHURCHES 


181 


and  that  Spirit  to  work,  if  that  particular  form  of 
organisation  does  not  exist.  The  essence  of  the 
Church  of  Christ  does  not  inhere  in  any  par¬ 
ticular  form  of  government.  The  fruit  of  in¬ 
valid  orders,  so-called,  proves  that. 

I  am  planting  my  garden.  On  the  other  side 
of  the  fence  is  my  neighbour  also  planting  his 
garden.  He  comes  of  a  long  line  of  gardeners. 
He  comes  over  to  the  fence  once  in  a  while  to  tell 
me  that  he  has  inherited  an  agricultural  gift, 
power,  and  authority  which  is  absolutely  neces¬ 
sary  to  the  proper  planting  of  vegetables.  Things 
planted  by  a  man  without  his  special  gift,  power, 
and  authority,  will  not  grow.  Talking  that  way 
about  plant  life,  we  are  tempted,  of  course,  to  call 
him  a  lunatic.  But  when  he  talks  that  way  about 
the  spiritual  life,  we  call  him  a  theologian.  At 
any  rate,  I  do  not  take  time  to  discuss  the  matter 
with  him.  I  observe  that  while  1  am  putting  a 
lot  of  time  and  labour  into  preparing  and  en¬ 
riching  the  soil,  he  is  trusting  to  certain  prescribed 
ways  of  planting,  certain  ritualistic  ways  of  put¬ 
ting  in  the  seed  to  bring  him  results.  The  only 
way,  as  I  see  it,  to  test  his  claim,  is  for  me  to 
plant  my  garden  in  my  way,  and  let  him  plant 
his  in  his  way.  And  so  we  plant. 

I  observe  that  the  same  sun  that  shines  on  his 
side  of  the  fence  shines  on  mine.  Rain  falls  on 
both  gardens  from  the  same  clouds.  My  corn 
breaks  through  the  ground  at  the  appointed 


l82  THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 

time,  just  as  his  does.  He  takes  a  look  over  the 
fence  at  my  corn  and  pronounces  it  weeds.  That 
does  not  particularly  worry  me,  for  I  reason 
that  you  cannot  make  a  stalk  of  corn  a  weed  just 
by  calling  it  a  weed. 

I  cultivate  my  garden,  using  methods  unlike 
those  used  by  my  neighbour.  Again  he  takes  the 
trouble  to  inform  me  that  corn  hoed  by  an  hereti¬ 
cal  and  schismatic  hoe  will  not  produce  anything. 
Again  I  do  not  regard  it  a  matter  for  an  argu¬ 
ment.  The  harvest  will  tell. 

The  harvest  comes.  My  corn  is  as  high  as  his. 
It  may  be  a  trifle  higher  on  the  average.  The 
ears  on  the  stalks  are  as  numerous  and  as  well 
developed  as  those  on  my  neighbour’s  corn,  across 
the  fence.  I  modestly  suggest  to  him  that  meth¬ 
ods  of  planting  corn  should  be  judged  by  their 
results.  He  turns  his  back  on  me  and  says, 
“What  you  have  there  is  not  corn.  It  can’t 
be.  It  was  not  produced  according  to  the  ancient 
traditions  and  customs  handed  down  in  my  fam¬ 
ily.  Besides,  you  are  not  one  of  us.  You  are 
not  in  the  line  of  agricultural  succession.” 

Jesus  said,  “By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know 
them,”  and  I  think  this  applies  to  churches  and 
orders  of  the  ministry  as  well  as  to  figs  and 
grapes.  And  this  little  parable  of  the  com  in 
the  two  gardens  illustrates  my  thought  in  regard 
to  orders  and  ecclesiastical  organisations. 

(If  my  neighbour  and  I  had  not  gotten  at  the 


AMONG  THE  CHURCHES 


183 

outs  over  the  theory  of  raising  corn,  and  instead 
had  agreed  to  take  down  the  fence  between  us  and 
cultivate  the  ground  which  it  caused  us  to  waste; 
if  we  had  worked  together,  each  learning  from 
the  other  and  each  giving  his  best  to  the  other;  if 
we  had  dropped  the  idea  of  personal  rivalry  and 
competition  and  had  worked  together  to  produce 
better  corn  than  either  had  ever  done  before,  you 
would  have  had  a  parable  expressing  my  idea  of 
the  way  Christian  fellowship  based  on  devotion 
to  a  common  cause  is  going  to  bring  the  Chris¬ 
tian  Unity  we  want. 

Rome  questions  the  validity  and  spiritual  effi¬ 
ciency  of  Anglican  orders.  The  Anglican  in  turn 
questions  the  orders  of  his  dissenting  brethren. 
But  the  test  of  a  ministry,  whether  it  be  of  God 
or  not,  is,  as  I  see  it,  in  the  spiritual  fruit  it  pro¬ 
duces.  What  other  test  can  there  be? 

The  continuity  of  the  true,  inward  spiritual  life 
of  the  Church  has  never  been  broken.  It  has  sur¬ 
vived  in  spite  of  the  breaks  which  have  come  in 
the  form  of  the  Church — its  organisation  and 
orders.  It  has  not  been  confined  to  those 
churches  which  possess  the  historic  episcopate  and 
whose  organisation  is  of  a  particular  traditional 
kind.  It  has  not  followed  any  fixed  creedal 
track,  or  any  one  form  of  worship,  or  any  par¬ 
ticular  sacramental  theory  and  practice.  The  real 
continuity  of  the  Church  of  Christ  is  to  be  found 
in  the  fellowship  of  those  loyal  to  Christ,  loyal 


184.  THE  gospel  of  fellowship 


to  His  ideals  of  individual  and  social  righteous¬ 
ness. 

Upon  Protestantism  has  been  placed  the  blame 
for  the  divided  Church.  That,  as  I  have  pointed 
out  above,  is  not  true.  The  blotches  on  the  skin 
of  a  child  are  not  the  cause  of  the  disease  called 
measles,  but  the  effect  of  it.  Protestantism  with 
its  divisions  is  but  the  reaction  against  a  false 
principle  of  unity  introduced  into  the  Church  cen¬ 
turies  before  the  actual  break  in  the  body  of  the 
Church  came  about.  But  there  is  a  sense  in  which 
Protestantism  is  responsible  for  the  perpetuation 
of  the  division  which  came.  The  trouble  with 
Protestantism  is  that  it  started  to  gO'  somewhere, 
became  satisfied  with  itself  after  taking  a  few 
steps,  and  stopped.  Protestantism  is  suffering 
from  an  arrested  development.  It  achieved  but 
a  partial  reformation.  The  choice  between 
Rome  and  Protestantism  is  not  a  choice  between 
error  and  truth,  but  a  choice  between  two  evils. 

All  reform  movements  are  exposed  to  the 
danger  of  assuming  that  they  represent  the  last 
step  in  progress.  Protestantism  very  early  in  its 
career  came  to  regard  itself  as  the  final  stage  in 
religious  and  ecclesiastical  evolution.  It  is  far 
from  that.  The  distance  which  Protestantism  has 
travelled,  that  is,  the  distance  between  it  and 
Rome,  is  far  less  than  the  distance  between  Prot¬ 
estantism  and  the  ideal  Church,  whose  bond  of 


AMONG  THE  CHURCHES  ^5 

unity  is  fellowship  among  those  who  are  walking 
in  the  light  as  He  is  in  the  light. 

Protestantism  carried  along  with  it  many  things 
it  should  have  left  behind — Rome’s  arbitrary 
methods  and  principles :  Rome’s  way  of  making 
tests  of  membership  in  Christ’s  Religion :  Rome’s 
ecclesiastical  spirit  of  tyranny.  It  made  subscrip¬ 
tion  to  creeds,  and  conformity  to  forms  of  wor¬ 
ship,  and  forms  of  ecclesiastical  government  the 
conditions  of  membership  within  its  fold,  just 
as  Rome  had  done. 

But  the  hope  for  unity  lies  in  Protestantism. 
It  can  lead  the  way  if  it  will  go  on  and  complete 
its  reformation,  now  so  long  arrested,  and  make 
fellowship  in  Christ  the  basis  of  membership  in 
the  Church.  There  are  indications  that  it  has  al¬ 
ready  entered  upon  this  further  stage  of  its  de¬ 
velopment. 

I  have  before  me  an  article  of  recent  date 
which  makes  reference  to  the  signs  I  have  in  mind. 

Commenting  on  the  broadening  of  views 
among  all  faiths  in  England,  Mr.  Frank  Victor 
says:  “ Already  there  have  been  exchange  of 
courtesies  between  the  established  church  and  dis¬ 
senting  bodies  which  would  have  been  held  incon¬ 
ceivable  before  the  war,  for  a  dissenting  (Metho^ 
dist)  minister  has  presided  at  a  service  in  Dur¬ 
ham  Cathedral,  a  Baptist  minister  has  preached 
in  Canterbury  Cathedral,  and  many  Church  of 


1 86  THE  gospel  of  fellowship 

England  dignitaries  have  accepted  invitations  to 
free  church  pulpits. 

“Careful  analysis  of  the  situation  gives  it  an 
interesting  origin.  It  is  believed  by  certain 
students  to  have  grown  out  of  the  close  association 
between  Anglican  and  dissenting  ‘padres’  or 
chaplains  during  the  war. 

“Before  the  war  it  was  ‘almost  a  mortal  sin 
for  such  to  hold  converse  together.’  But  in  war 
time  they  joined  hands  and  worked  with  all  their 
hearts  and  muscle,  and  of  tentime  at  the  cost  of 
life  itself,  not  only  together,  but  in  partnership 
with  Roman  priests  and  wholly  non-denomina- 
tional  Salvationists  for  the  saving  of  the  soldiers’ 
souls — and  bodies.  These  men,  returning,  have 
shown  a  great  impatience  with  the  narrowness 
of  the  old  creedism. 

“This  means  more  to  Englishmen  than  most 
Americans  will  understand.  Within  the  memory 
of  living  men,  Church  of  England  devotees  and 
clergy  often  regarded  free  church,  or  ‘dissenting’ 
believers,  that  is,  those  who>  did  not  subscribe  to 
the  particular  creed  of  the  Church  of  England, 
as  lost  souls  and  dangerous  even  to  nod  to  on  the 
streets. 

“Of  course  the  Roman  Church  still  denies  com¬ 
munion  to  non-Catholics,  but  there  is  a  broad¬ 
ening  of  view  among  the  priesthood  as  notable 
as  that  obvious  among  Church  of  England  men, 
and  innumerable  instances  of  very  real  cordiality 


AMONG  THE  CHURCHES 


187 


and  co-operation  between  Protestant  and  Catholic 
clergy  are  of  recent,  post-war  record.  The  feel¬ 
ing,  once  almost  full  of  something  close  to  enmity, 
now  is  that  of  good  fellowship  in  the  doing  of 
good  works.” 

The  author  of  this  article  quotes  Dr.  Charles 
Brown,  one  of  the  best  known  men  in  the  Free 
Church,  as  saying,  “We  gratefully  acknowledge 
that  we  have  come  into  a  better  atmosphere, 
purer  and  sweeter.  The  better  people  of  all 
Christian  churches  regard  the  old  attitude  as 
wrong  and  un-Christian.”  And  to  this  he  joins 
the  statement  of  the  Bishop  of  London.  “It  is 
impossible,”  says  the  Bishop,  “that  we  should  go 
back  again  to  the  old,  bad  and  bitter  spirit.” 

Unity  through  fellowship  is  possible.  Unity 
through  authority  and  submission,  or  through 
subscription  to  a  common  creed  and  body  of  doc¬ 
trine,  is  not  possible.  And  if  it  were,  it  would 
not  be  desirable.  For  in  the  light  of  past  experi¬ 
ence  such  would  not  furnish  a  true  basis  for  last¬ 
ing  unity.  Unity  in  doctrine  under  the  pres¬ 
sure  of  authority  carries  in  it  the  seed  of  dissen¬ 
sion  and  division.  The  day  of  the  regulation  of 
thought  by  authority  has  passed.  The  Church 
or  state  that  attempts  to  hold  its  ground  by  for¬ 
bidding  men  to  think  has  about  as  much  chance 
to  succeed  in  its  undertaking  as  the  old  lady  had 
of  keeping  the  tide  of  the  ocean  back  with  her 
broom. 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


1 88 

Men  are  no  longer  willing  to  be  kept  in  the 
dark  with  the  assurance  that  a  paternal  ecclesias¬ 
tical  organisation  will  lead  them  safely  through 
it,  but  they  are  demanding  that  they  be  brought 
out  into  the  light  that  they  may  walk  as  free  men 
therein. 

The  Church  is  awakening  to  the  realisation 
that  what  it  once  regarded  as  its  theological  as¬ 
sets  have  become  liabilities.  There  is  no  market 
for  doctrine,  but  a  great  demand  for  individual 
and  social  programmes  of  living. 

There  is  no  short-cut  to  unity.  It  will  never 
come  as  the  result  of  a  holy  canonical,  creedal,  or 
organic  device  worked  out  in  conferences  and  con¬ 
ventions.  We  will  enter  into  unity  through  fel¬ 
lowship  in  service,  and  we  will  enter  into  the  fel¬ 
lowship  of  service  only  after  we  have  come  more 
under  the  spirit  of  Christ  than  we  are  at  present. 
And  unity  is  not  going  to  be  found  by  turning 
back  and  retracing  our  steps  over  the  historical 
trail  we  have  made.  The  unity  we  seek,  and  the 
only  unity  that  will  last,  lies  before  us,  not  behind. 
The  emphasis  will  have  to  be  shifted  from  the 
question,  “What  must  my  church  give  up?”  to 
the  question,  “What  has  my  church  to  give  to 
the  new  and  larg'er  Church?”  for  in  the  Church 
born  of  fellowship  there  will  be  more  of  va¬ 
riety  of  thought  and  worship,  not  less.  It  will 
be  a  living,  growing,  changing  thing,  not  a  dead 
and  finished  and  changeless  thing.  There  will  be 


AMONG  THE  CHURCHES 


189 


no  custodian  standing  at  its  door  demanding  that 
men  give  over  to  him  their  liberty  of  thought  and 
conscience.  Nature  abhors  sameness.  She  revels 
in  variety.  The  distinguishing  characteristic  of 
abundant  life  is  its  flexibility  as  to  form  and 
modes  of  expression. 

Our  craving  for  religious  unity  is  instinctive. 
It  has  a  psychological  basis.  Our  dreams  of 
unity  will  last  as  long  as  the  race  endures,  and 
we  will  never  be  at  rest  until  we  find  it. 

The  religious  life  cannot  long  survive  in  isola¬ 
tion.  It  requires  not  only  the  expression  of  it¬ 
self  in  service  of  others,  but  it  demands  as  neces¬ 
sary  to  its  very  existence  that  assurance  and 
reinforcement  which  comes  from  association  and 
fellowship  with  others  who  are  also  seekers  after 
God.  If  occasion  require,  a  man  may  stand  alone 
as  a  witness  to  his  faith  in  Christ,  he  may  pray 
alone,  and  alone  sing  his  song  in  the  night,  but 
it  is  when  his  voice  is  merged  in  the  prayer  and 
song  of  a  united  visible  as  well  as  invisible 
Church  that  he  finds  deepest  assurance  of  the 
presence  and  reality  of  God. 

The  commission  of  Jesus  Christ  to  His  disci¬ 
ples  was  clear  and  concise.  They  were  to  go  into 
all  the  world  and  make  disciples  of  all  nations. 
These  disciples  were  to  be  governed  and  held 
together  by  one  law — love  and  service.  Walking 
in  the  light  of  His  life  they  were  to  find  fellow¬ 
ship  one  with  another.  Love  and  fellowship  are 


190 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


inseparable.  They  were  to  be  the  bonds  of  unity 
in  the  new  Christian  society.  Wherever  groups 
of  disciples  formed  they  were  to  be  as  ganglia  in 
the  old  order.  Gradually  they  were  to  change  the 
old  into  the  new,  and  the  new  social  order  bound 
together  in  the  fellowship  of  love  and  service 
would  be  that  which  He  came  to  establish — the 
new  social  order,  the  Kingdom  of  God  on  earth. 


LECTURE  VI 


THE  FELLOWSHIP  OF  THE  MYSTERY 

THE  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians,  from  the  third 
chapter  of  which  these  words  are  taken, 
might  be  called  the  Epistle  of  the  Fulness. 
That  word — pleroma — occurs  four  times  in  its 
six  chapters,  more  frequently  than  in  any  other 
book  of  the  New  Testament.  The  subject  of 
the  epistle  might  be  stated  in  its  own  words,  “the 
fulness  of  Him  that  filleth  all  in  all,”  and  its  ob¬ 
ject  in  those  other  words  from  the  same  epistle, 
“that  ye  might  be  filled  with  all  the  fulness  of 
God,”  and  “until  we  all  come  .  .  .  into  a  com¬ 
plete  manhood,  unto  the  measure  of  the  stature 
of  the  fulness  of  Christ.” 

And  that  fulness  characterises  its  style  and  its 
language.  It  is  so  surcharged  with  the  fulness  of 
thought,  experience  and  emotion  that  it  bursts  all 
bounds  o'f  grammatical  rule  and  order.  The 
writer  piles  one  magnificent  phrase  upon  another, 
Pelion  upon  Ossa,  and  from  that  height  his  lan¬ 
guage  pours  in  torrents.  It  is  broken  by  side 
issues  that  suddenly  project  into  his  thought  and 
the  interruption  is  sometimes  utterly  forgotten 


192 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


and  the  statement  left  unfinished;  or  it  is  re¬ 
sumed  again  after  a  long  digression,  as  in  the 
present  chapter,  where  he  begins  a  prayer,  “for 
this  cause,”  and  then  suddenly  goes  off  into  a 
long  and  ecstatic  excursion  among  the  mysteries, 
only  to  resume  at  the  14th  verse,  “For  this  cause 
I  bow  my  knees  unto  the  Father  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ.”  Syntax  is  blown  into  the  spray 
of  loose  impossible  constructions  by  mighty  gusts 
of  sudden  emotion.  Figures  of  speech  roll  up 
in  confused  clouds  of  mist.  The  climax  is 
reached  in  this  wonderful  third  chapter.  Its 
dominating  word  is  “mystery.”  That  word  oc¬ 
curs  twenty-seven  times  in  the  New  Testament — 
in  the  gospels  three  times,  which  reduce  to  one, 
for  the  three  instances  are  reports  by  the  three 
synoptics  of  the  same  saying — four  times  in  the 
Book  of  Revelation,  and  twenty  times  in  the 
Epistles  accredited  to  St.  Paul, — six  times  in  this 
one  epistle  and  three  times  in  this  one  chapter. 
Evidently  this  word  mystery,  together  with  that 
other  word  fulness,  strikes  the  keynote  of  the 
apostle’s  message.  For  him  it  sums  up  the  gos¬ 
pel.  “He  made  known  unto  me  the  mystery”; 
it  is  the  charge  and  trust  of  the  ministry — we  are 
“stewards  of  the  mysteries  of  God.”  It  is  the 
very  constituent  principle  of  the  Church.  The 
Church  is  the  “fellowship  of  the  mystery.”  The 
Fellowship  of  the  Mystery — that  phrase  gives  us 
the  subject  of  this  lecture. 


FELLOWSHIP  OF  THE  MYSTERY 


193 


First,  we  must  try  to  find  out  the  meaning  of 
that  word  “mystery.”  We  must  utterly  divest 
our  minds,  at  the  start,  of  the  modern  connota¬ 
tions  of  the  term.  With  us  it  is  associated  with 
mists  and  mistiness.  We  have  coined  an  adjec¬ 
tive  from  it — “mysterious.”  It  connotes  the  in¬ 
explicable  and  unintelligible.  That  which  lies 
beyond  the  comprehension  or  even  apprehension 
of  the  understanding  is  called  a  mystery. 

In  the  language  of  the  New  Testament  and  of 
the  times  and  circumstances  in  which  the  New 
Testament  was  written,  the  word  has  an  entirely 
different  meaning.  It  comes  from  a  verb  signify¬ 
ing  “to  whisper” — to  tell  in  low  tones  into  the 
ear.  It  is  a  secret  revealed.  It  may  be  a  per¬ 
fectly  clear,  intelligible,  comprehensible  truth  or 
statement,  but  the  point  is,  it  is  a  secret  revealed. 
The  word  probably  comes  from  the  vocabulary, 
the  uses  and  practices  of  certain  Greek  societies 
or  associations,  like  the  Eleusinian  Mysteries. 
They  were  like  a  glorified  college  fraternity  or 
Masonic  order.  The  principles  and  truth  they 
stood  for,  together  doubtless  with  certain  pass¬ 
words  and  signs,  were  communicated,  “whispered 
into  the  ear”  of  the  initiated  after  religious  cer¬ 
emonies,  and  processes  of  preparation  and  puri¬ 
fication,  such  as  vigils,  fastings,  and  symbolic 
rites.  These  whispered  communications,  these 
revealed  secrets,  were  the  “mysteries.” 

The  meaning  of  the  word  becomes  plain.  The 


194 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


“Gospel,”  the  “Good  News,”  was  the  secret  whis¬ 
pered  by  God  into  the  ears  of  the  initiated  of 
this  new  fraternity,  the  disciples  and  the  “friends” 
of  the  Christ,  the  communion  of  the  saints  or 
“dedicated  ones,”  and  so  they  became  “The  Fel¬ 
lowship  of  the  Mystery,”  which  is  the  soul  and 
essence  of  the  Christian  Church.  Only  there  is 
this  supreme  and  radical  difference  between  the 
Greek  mystery  and  the  mystery  of  the  Gospel. 
The  Greek  mystery  was  esoteric.  The  Gospel 
mystery  is  exoteric.  The  Greek  fellowship  was 
exclusive.  The  fellowship  of  the  Christian  mys¬ 
tery  is  designed  to  be  all-inclusive.  Its  secret 
is  a  secret  that  belongs  to  the  world,  and  must 
be  communicated  to  all  mankind.  The  command 
is — “Go  ye  into  all  the  world  and  preach  the  gos¬ 
pel  to  every  creature — disciple  all  nations.”  In 
the  end  this  secret  must  be  whispered  in  the  ear 
of  every  living  soul  till  all  men  become  members 
of  “the  fellowship  of  the  mystery.” 

What  is  the  Gospel — the  Christian  mystery? 
I  know  not  where  it  is  more  simply  summarised 
than  in  the  familiar  words  which  so  often  slip 
over  our  minds  without  making  any  impression 
upon  them — “The  grace  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
and  the  love  of  God  and  the  fellowship  of  the 
Holy  Ghost  be  with  us  all.”  It  might  be  para¬ 
phrased  “In  the  grace  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
is  revealed  the  love  of  God,  making  the  fellow¬ 
ship  of  the  Spirit.”  For  that  phrase,  “the  fel- 


FELLOWSHIP  OF  THE  MYSTERY 


195 


lowship  of  the  Holy  Ghost,”  I  believe,  means, 
not  so  much  the  fellowship  or  communion  with 
God  through  His  Spirit  (though  it  includes  and 
indeed  roots  in  that),  as  it  means  the  fellowship 
of  Christian  believers  and  initiated  one  with  an¬ 
other  in  their  common  bond — the  gospel — the  re¬ 
vealed  secret  of  God,  under  the  inspiration  of 
the  Spirit.  It  is  the  fellowship  of  the  mystery  ef¬ 
fected  by  the  power  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 

To  resume — The  whole  revelation  made  in 
Jesus  Christ  is  summed  up  in  that  one  surpassing, 
ineffable  word,  “grace,”  a  word  which  it  is  al¬ 
most  impossible  to  interpret  and  quite  impossible 
to  exhaust.  So  the  Fourth  Gospel  states  the 
summary  of  that  revelation,  “The  Word  became 
flesh  and  tabernacled  among  us  and  we  beheld  His 
glory,  the  glory  as  of  the  only  begotten  of  the 
Father,  full  of  grace  and  truth.”  It  is  this  word 
“grace”  which  is  chosen  to  bear  practically  the 
whole  burden  of  the  revelation  made  in  Christ 
Jesus.  I  have  said  that  grace  is  an  almost  in¬ 
definable  and  a  quite  inexhaustible  word.  Per¬ 
haps  we  can  get  glimpses  of  some  of  its  aspects 
by  a  gradual  approach. 

In  commercial  language  we  speak  of  the  “three 
days  of  grace”  allowed  in  the  payment  of  a  note 
or  of  a  life  insurance  premium.  The  word  stands 
for  the  time  allowed  beyond  the  limit  of  obligation 
— the  over-plus,  so  to  speak,  of  the  law. 

In  that  puzzling  book,  Ecclesiastes,  the  preacher 


196  the  gospel  of  fellowship 


is  struggling  with  the  old,  old  question,  “Is  life 
worth  living ?”  And,  if  so,  what  makes  it  worth 
living?  He  uses  a  strange  and  rare  Hebrew 
word  which  recurs  constantly  throughout  the 
book  like  the  solemn  note  of  a  bell-buoy  at  sea. 
It  is  the  word  “yitheron.”  Literally  it  means 
what  is  left-over— the  overplus  of  life  beyond 
the  mere  business  of  living.  That  is  what  gives 
it  value.  That  is  what  makes  it  really  life  as  dis¬ 
tinguished  from  mere  living. 

The  preacher  tries  out  all  the  values  in  which 
men  generally  seek  the  worth  and  joy  of  life  and 
finds  them  empty.  They  are  vanity,  emptiness. 
Wealth,  it  is  but  “means,”  to  use  an  apt  and  com¬ 
mon  phrase,  means  to  a  further  end,  and  mean¬ 
ingless  unless  it  issues  in  that  end.  Pleasure — 
it  is  but  the  lubricant  of  life,  not  its  object.  It 
grows  rancid  and  smells  to  heaven  if  impure. 
It  clogs  the  machinery  if  used  in  excess. 
Knowledge — it  is  power;  it  gives  skill,  but  to 
what  purpose?  Unless  it  finds  vent  in  that 
further  purpose,  it  becomes  weariness  to  the  flesh, 
aye,  it  breaks  the  heart. 

Passionately,  desperately,  the  preacher  searches 
for  this  “yitheron,”  this  “profit”  (as  we  inade¬ 
quately  translate  the  word),  the  output  and  prod¬ 
uct  of  life  beyond  the  mere  running  of  the  ma¬ 
chinery  of  living,  and  finds  it  not,  except  in  the 
rather  dull,  negative,  colourless  conclusion,  “Fear 


FELLOWSHIP  OF  THE  MYSTERY 


197 

God  and  keep  His  commandments,  for  this  is 
the  whole  duty  of  man.” 

Now  the  Hebrew  word  “yitheron”  dimly 
adumbrates  that  ebullient,  radiant,  effulgent  Greek 
word  “charis,”  which  in  the  New  Testament 
sums  up  the  character  and  the  revelation  of  Jesus 
Christ.  Jesus  Christ  illuminates  all  human  life 
and  the  face  of  God  Himself  with  the  splendour, 
the  glory  of  grace — His  grace. 

The  sinlessness  of  Jesus  is  taken  for  granted, 
assumed  in  the  New  Testament.  It  is  referred  to 
in  passing  only  once  or  twice.  That  which  we 
make  so  much  of  did  not  arrest  the  attention  of 
the  New  Testament  writers.  That  was  not  the 
wonder  of  that  life.  It  was  the  character,  the 
source  and  the  method  o:f  that  sinlessness.  It 
was  not  attained  by  asepsis  and  quarantine  from 
the  world,  like  the  sanctity  of  the  ascetic  or  the 
monk.  It  was  not  negative,  icily  regular,  coldly 
correct,  like  the  Pharisee’s  righteousness,  who 
“walked  blameless  in  the  statutes  and  ordinances 
of  the  law.”  The  wonder  of  His  sinlessness  was 
its  positiveness,  not  its  negativeness.  When  He 
touched  the  leper,  contrary  to  the  prohibitions 
of  the  law,  contagion  did  not  assail  Him,  but 
from  His  fulness  cleansing  flowed  out  upon  the 
leper.  So  He  went  about  amidst  the  sickness 
of  the  crowds  and  streams  of  healing  and  health 
poured  into  their  needs. 


l9S  THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


So  it  was  with  His  character;  it  was  positive, 
ebullient,  effulgent;  it  had  issues  of  virtue.  He 
lived  in  the  very  depths  of  a  sinful  world.  He 
dwelt  among  the  dregs  of  humanity.  He  was 
the  friend  of  publicans  and  sinners,  aye,  of  the 
very  harlots  of  the  streets.  He  shunned  no  con¬ 
tacts  and  yet  He  contracted  no  stain  upon  His 
spotless  holiness.  He  carried  pardon,  peace, 
cleansing,  new  life  wherever  He  went.  He  in¬ 
spired  new  vision,  faith  and  hope  in  the  most 
broken  and  despairing  lives.  He  gave  to  all  who 
had  any  receptiveness  “power  to  become  the  sons 
of  God.”  The  Fourth  Evangelist  sums  it  all  up 
in  these  words:  “Of  His  fulness  have  we  all  re¬ 
ceived  and  grace  for  grace.”  That  may  mean 
grace  upon  grace  in  cumulative  accretion,  or  it 
may  mean  grace  from  His  “grace- fulness”  ac¬ 
cording  to  the  measure  of  our  graciousness — our 
openness  of  receptivity. 

That,  I  believe,  is  the  foundation — yes,  the 
meaning  of  St.  Paul’s  great  doctrine  of  Justifica¬ 
tion  by  Faith  and  salvation  by  grace.  It  is  set 
forth  often  in  “words  hard  to  be  understood, 
which  they  that  are  unstable  wrest  to  their  own 
damnation,”  as  Peter  observed.  But  the  great 
apostle  is  simply  trying  to  translate  that  vision, 
“and  we  beheld  His  glory,”  into  the  “tongue 
wherein  he  himself  was  born,”  the  crabbed,  legal¬ 
istic  terminology  of  the  rabbis.  He  is  “Judais- 
ing  the  argument.”  But  its  essence  is  plain. 


FELLOWSHIP  OF  THE  MYSTERY 


199 


The  righteousness  which  is  of  the  law — it  is  the 
molten  metal  of  human  nature,  full  of  dross  and 
flaws,  compressed  into  regularity  of  shape,  by 
the  restraints  and  repressions  and  suppressions  of 
prohibitions  and  precepts — the  mould  of  the  law. 
The  righteousness  of  faith  which  springs  from 
grace — it  is  a  regeneration,  the  implanting  of  a 
new  principle  of  life  within.  It  has  its  imper¬ 
fections,  too,  but  it  has  vitality,  it  has  beauty  and 
fragrance,  it  has  the  power  and  promise  of  con¬ 
tinual  growth — “from  glory  unto  glory” — “to¬ 
wards  the  perfect  man,  towards  the  measure  of 
the  stature  of  the  fulness  of  the  Christ.”  Yea, 
“of  His  fulness  have  we  all  received  and  grace 
for  grace.” 

All  this  is  but  a  suggestion  of  what  is  meant  by 
“the  grace  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ.”  It  is  the 
life  that  overflowed  all  measures  of  demand,  of 
duty,  of  obligation,  of  law,  and  flowed  out  into 
the  needs  of  the  world  with  its  over-plus  of  spir¬ 
itual  vitality.  It  was  the  fountain  life  that  kept 
away  the  contagion  of  evil  by  the  outflow  of  its 
currents,  and  carried  cleansing,  healing  and 
strength  into  all  the  human  sin  and  disease  and 
weakness  it  could  reach.  As  Phillips  Brooks 
has  said,  “Whenever  we  stand  before  Christ,  we 
feel  that  we  are  in  the  presence  of  a  boundless  sea 
o'f  mercy,  love  and  power.  Whatever  words  of 
wisdom  come  from  His  lips,  whatever  deeds  of 
healing  from  His  hands  into  the  waiting  needs  of 


200 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


men,  we  feel  behind  them  exhaustless  resources 
yearning  to  pour  forth  till  they  shall  fill  all  the 
hunger  of  humanity.”  There  is  the  patience  that 
cannot  be  worn  out,  the  courage  that  cannot  be 
daunted,  the  faith  that  cannot  fail  and  that  will 
never  give  up  even  the  most  irredeemable,  the 
hope  that  cannot  be  broken,  and  the  love  that 
nothing  can  quench.  Behold,  it  hangs  upon  the 
Cross  of  Calvary,  that  grace  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ.  Around  it  surges  the  sea  of  human  sin, 
wickedness,  ingratitude  and  scorn.  They  mock 
Him,  they  curse  Him,  they  spit  their  venom  in 
His  very  face.  But  as  a  great  preacher  has  said, 
“It  was  as  if  men,  in  their  madness,  flung  water 
at  the  stars  to  put  out  their  light,  and  they  went 
on  shining  as  calmly  and  beneficently  as  before.” 

I  would  U  could  put  into  words  a  tithe  of  what 
I  see  in  that  one  phrase — the  grace  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ.  All  language  fails  before  the 
vision.  You  who  share  the  vision  sense  what  I 
mean.  But  though  this  be  so,  though  words 
fail  us,  we  know  how  impregnable  that  vision 
makes  faith;  how  it  lifts  faith  above  the  reach  of 
all  arguments  and  the  touch  of  all  doubt. 

The  critics  may  tear  the  Gospel  narratives  into 
shreds,  but  through  all  the  fragments  shines  out 
that  one  Face  which  no  painter  on  earth  ever 
painted,  which  no  imagination,  however  inspired, 
could  ever  invent.  It  is  too  real,  too  consistent, 
for  any  such  origin.  There  is  the  seamless  gar- 


FELLOWSHIP  OF  THE  MYSTERY 


201 


ment  c>f  His  character  which  no  man  can  rend 
asunder.  The  storms  of  controversy  may  rage 
but  we  stand  unmoved,  because  “we  know  Him 
upon  whom  we  have  believed/’  To  all  hostile 
arguments  we  can  make  one  steady,  calm  answer, 
“See  the  Christ  stand.”  In  that  vision  of  the 
spiritual  insight  we  can  share  in  our  degree  the 
assurance  of  those  eye-witnesses  who  declared 
so  confidently,  “That  which  was  from  the  begin¬ 
ning,  which  we  have  heard,  which  we  have  seen 
with  our  eyes,  which  we  have  looked  upon,  and 
our  hands  have  handled,  of  the  Word  of  Life 
(for  the  life  was  manifested  and  we  have  seen 
it  and  bear  witness  and  show  unto  you  that 
eternal  life  which  was  with  the  Father  and  was 
manifested  unto  us),  that  which  we  have  seen 
and  heard  declare  we  unto  you  that  ye  also  may 
have  fellowship  with  us,  and  truly  our  fellowship 
is  with  the  Father  and  with  His  Son,  Jesus 
Christ,  and  these  things  write  we  unto  you  that 
your  joy  may  be  full.”  This  is  the  mystery,  the 
revealed  secret,  of  the  grace  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ. 

But  this  is  only  the  beginning  of  the  Gospel. 
For  in  the  “grace  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ” 
these  men  found  another  mystery — the  supreme 
mystery — the  revelation  of  “the  love  of  God.” 
There  could  be  to  them  no  other  explanation  of 
this  super-abounding  “grace  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ.”  It  was  beyond  all  human  nature.  It 


202 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


was  a  manifestation  of  the  Divine  nature.  It 
could  have  no  other  source  or  origin.  It  sprang 
out  of  the  very  heart  of  God.  It  was  an  efful¬ 
gence  of  the  splendour  of  God.  “We  beheld  His 
glory,  the  glory  as  of  the  only  begotten  of  the 
Father.”  In  the  face  of  the  Christ  they  saw  the 
face  of  God.  As  Jesus  said  to  Philip,  “He  that 
hath  seen  me  hath  seen  the  Father.  How  sayest 
thou  then,  Show  us  the  Father?” 

Seven  times  only  is  this  title,  “Father,”  ap¬ 
plied  to  God  in  the  Old  Testament, — four  times 
in  the  Psalms,  three  times  in  the  Second  Isaiah. 
These  are  faint  forecasts  of  the  new  “mystery,” 
the  revelation  of  the  Fatherhood  of  God,  the  first 
rays  of  the  coming  dawn  of  the  Gospel  day. 

The  title  occurs  numberless  times  in  the  New 
Testament,  lit  is  the  habitual,  practically  the 
only  Name  Jesus  uses  for  God.  And  it  is  taken 
up  in  a  chorus  of  jubilation  in  all  the  apostolic 
epistles.  It  is  difficult,  practically  impossible, 
for  us  to  realise  the  transformation  that  one  word 
wrought  in  these  men’s  inherited  and  instinctive 
conceptions  of  God. 

The  remote  Almighty,  the  omnipotent,  though 
righteous  Despot,  the  eternal  Lawgiver,  the  inex¬ 
orable  Doomster,  seated  upon  His  throne  in  the 
far-off  heaven,  riding  upon  the  thunder  clouds, 
His  chariots,  revealed  by  lightning  flashes  of  His 
wrath  in  national  catastrophes  and  the  judgments 
of  history,  approaching  the  individual  chiefly  as 


FELLOWSHIP  OF  THE  MYSTERY 


203 


an  inflexible  and  meticulous  Taskmaster — these 
were  the  common  Hebrew  conceptions  of  Jeho¬ 
vah,  mitigated  only  here  and  there  by  the  splendid 
guesses  and  glimpses  of  rare  souls,  like  those  of 
one  or  two  of  the  psalmists  or  the  Great  Seer. 

Think  what  it  meant  to  men,  saturated  with 
such  conceptions  as  to  God,  to  find  the  heart  of  a 
Father  at  the  centre  of  life  and  the  universe  and 
to  discover  the  love  of  God  in  the  grace  of  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ.  And  there  is  no  other  way 
into  the  mystery  of  the  love  of  God  except 
through  the  mystery  of  the  grace  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ.  It  is  eternally  true,  as  He  said, 
“No  man  cometh  unto  the  Father  but  by  me.” 
Apart  from  Christ,  God  inevitably  fades  out  to 
the  human  mind  into  a  Fate,  a  Force,  a  Power 
not  ourselves  that  perhaps  makes  for  righteous¬ 
ness,  but  never  a  Father.  As  Browning  puts  it: 


“Conjecture  of  the  worker  by  the  work: 

Is  there  strength  there? — enough:  intelligence? 
Ample:  but  goodness  in  a  like  degree? 

Not  to  the  human  eye  in  the  present  state, 

An  isoscele  deficient  in  the  base. 

What  lacks,  then,  of  perfection  fit  for  God 
But  just  the  instance  which  this  tale  supplies 
Of  love  without  a  limit?  So  is  strength, 

So  is  intelligence;  let  love  be  so, 

Unlimited  in  its  self-sacrifice, 

Then  is  the  tale  true  and  God  shows  complete. 
Beyond  the  tale  I  reach  into  the  dark, 

Feel  what  I  cannot  see,  and  still  faith  stands.” 


204 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


That  mystery  of  the  love  of  God  revealed  in 
the  mystery  of  “the  grace  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ”  demanded  of  those  to  whom  it  first  came, 
as  it  demands  of  us  to-day,  some  revision  of  our 
common,  conventional  and  orthodox  notions 
about  God,  especially  as  to  His  omnipotence.  He 
is  a  changed  God.  He  at  least  limits  His  omnip¬ 
otence  in  order  to  share  our  struggle  and  our 
suffering.  He  becomes  the  champion  God,  the 
Leader  in  our  fight  with  the  evil  of  the  world — 
aye,  the  Companion  God,  who  shares  our  burdens, 
the  God  Mr.  Wells  thinks  he  has  discovered  in 
the  “Invisible  King,”  but  whom,  long  ago, 
Isaiah  glimpsed  when  he  painted  that  picture  of 
the  conqueror  from  Edom,  with  garments  dyed 
red  in  the  blood  of  our  strife,  or  the  passionate 
and  compassionate  God  of  that  other  picture, 
“In  all  their  affliction  He  was  afflicted,  and  the 
angel  of  His  presence  saved  them;  in  His  love 
and  in  His  pity  He  redeemed  them ;  and  He  bare 
them  all  the  days  of  old.” 

It  is  the  God  who  is  revealed  in  His  fulness  in 
Christ,  and  that,  too,  Christ  crucified.  That  new 
faith  gave  these  men  new  victory  over  the  world, 
as  it  will  give  us,  if  we  cherish  it.  It  lifts  above 
the  doubts  that  come  with  the  mystery  of  iniquity 
in  the  world  about  us  or  the  mysteries  of  suffer¬ 
ing  in  our  own  lives.  These  men  faced  a  world 
far  more  evil  than  we  know — apparently  hope¬ 
lessly  wicked.  Their  constant  experience  was 


FELLOWSHIP  OF  THE  MYSTERY 


205 


tribulation  and  affliction.  They  daily  faced  per¬ 
secution  and  death.  Yet  they  could  sing  amidst 
the  fires,  “When  the  burnt  offering  began,  then 
began  the  song  of  the  Lord  with  trumpets.”  And 
why?  Because  they  found  in  it  all,  God,  the 
champion  and  leader  of  that  eternal  battle  with 
the  evil  that  must  end  in  final  victory;  God,  the 
compassionate  self-giver,  the  sharer  of  the  burden 
and  the  suffering,  aye,  the  “undying  fire”  within 
that  must  burn  to  the  limits  of  sacrifice  until  the 
soul  and  the  universe  should  be  burned  clean. 
The  very  Cross  which  to  the  worldling  was  the 
climax  of  the  riddle  of  the  universe,  the  supreme 
mystery  of  iniquity,  became  to  them  the  supreme 
revelation  of  the  Father,  the  mystery  of  the  love 
of  God. 

And  the  results  of  this  mystery  of  the  love 
of  God  revealed  in  the  “grace  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ” — its  effects  on  life,  experience,  character, 
the  Church, — what  were  they? 

First,  an  impregnable  inward  peace,  the  peace 
that  passeth  understanding,  which  nothing  out¬ 
ward  could  touch,  an  inalienable  joy  which  the 
world  could  not  give  nor  yet  take  away.  Jesus 
had  said  to  them  under  the  very  shadow  of  the 
Cross,  “My  joy  give  I  unto  you  and  your  joy 
shall  be  full.”  And  the  literature  of  the  New 
Testament  proves  the  reality  and  the  fulfilment 
of  that  promise. 

Think  of  it :  here  is  a  literature  written  by  men 


20 6 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


who  had  such  a  sensitiveness  to  sin  as  no  others 
have  ever  had — facing  a  world  of  such  wicked¬ 
ness  as  we  know  not  of — suffering  daily  as  few 
have  ever  suffered — and  yet  this  book  is  the  most 
jubilant  book  ever  written.  Open  it  almost  any¬ 
where  and  it  sings  and  shouts  with  joy.  Alas! 
what  has  become  of  it,  this  “peace  and  joy  in 
believing”  which  filled  the  hearts  and  lives  of 
those  first  Christians?  (Where  can  you  find  it 
in  the  life  of  the  average  modern  Christian,  even 
in  our  own  lives,  ministers  of  Christ  though  we 
be?)  The  splendour  of  the  dawn  has  long  ago 
faded  out  into  the  light  of  common  day,  and  a 
dark,  dreary  day  it  is  with  many  of  us.  Faith 
has  become  so  conventional  and  formal,  an  un¬ 
realised  assumption  and  commonplace,  something 
we  hold  instead  of  something  that  holds  and 
grips  and  uplifts  and  possesses  us.  This  is  the 
supreme  need  in  our  Christian  life  and  work,  par¬ 
ticularly  in  our  ministry — such  a  Pentecost  of 
conviction,  such  a  revival  of  that  primitive  spirit, 
such  an  opening  of  the  clogged  springs  of  our 
faith,  as  should  flood  our  lives  with  peace  and  joy. 
Then  nothing  would  seem  impossible  to  us.  Then 
mountains  of  difficulty  would  be  cast  into  the  sea. 
Then  would  we  shout  that  paean  of  St.  Paul,  “I 
can  do  all  things  through  Christ  who  strength¬ 
ened  inwardly.” 

But  the  most  striking  outcome  of  this  new 
revelation  in  the  experience  and  lives  of  the  first 


FELLOWSHIP  OF  THE  MYSTERY 


207 


disciples  was  the  Fellowship — the  Fellowship 
of  the  Mystery,  the  Fellowship  of  the  Spirit. 
That  was  the  new  thing  that  came  into  the  world 
with  Christianity.  That  was  what  really  hap¬ 
pened  on  Pentecost.  It  was  not  that  the  Spirit 
was  then  first  given.  Nay,  according  to  the 
record,  the  Spirit  was  already  in  the  world, 
resident  in  all  humanity.  It  was  the  Spirit  that 
inspired  Bezaleel  and  Aholiab  to  do  cunning  work 
for  the  tabernacle.  And  we  believe  that  Spirit 
is  the  source  of  all  practical  wisdom,  even  of  the 
skill  of  the  craftsman.  It  was  the  Spirit  that 
gave  the  seer  his  vision  and  the  prophet  his  mes¬ 
sage,  who  laid  upon  him  the  burden  of  the  Lord. 
It  was  the  Spirit  that  always  has  been  and  ever 
is  the  source  from  whom  “all  holy  desires,  all 
good  counsels  and  all  just  works  do  proceed,” 
and  wherever  we  find  the  fruits  of  the  Spirit  in 
the  heathen,  Jewish  or  Christian  worlds,  in  Chris¬ 
tian  or  pre-Christian  eras,  there  we  are  sure  of 
the  presence  of  the  Spirit. 

No,  it  was  not  that  the  Spirit  was  first  given  on 
Pentecost.  But  there  came  then  a  new  and  tran¬ 
scendent  manifestation  of  the  Spirit.  It  was 
the  “fellowship  of  the  mystery,”  the  “communion 
of  the  Holy  Ghost.” 

That  was  the  new  spiritual  life  about  which  the 
Church  organised  as  the  shell  grows  about  the  liv¬ 
ing  animal.  That  has  been  ever  the  soul  of 
which  the  Church  is  the  body,  “the  blessed  com- 


208 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


pany  of  all  faithful  people,”  “the  communion  of 
the  saints.”  The  word  that  stands  for  fellow¬ 
ship — “koinonia” — and  its  derivatives,  variously 
translated  in  our  English  versions,  go  singing 
and  ringing  throughout  the  Acts  and  the  Epistles. 

It  can  almost  be  said  to  be  the  keynote,  the 
theme  of  the  whole  apostolic  literature.  It  is  the 
centre  and  crystallising  principle  of  the  Christian 
life.  It  is  the  spring  of  unquenchable  and  in¬ 
effable  joy  and  enthusiasm.  It  gives  meaning 
to  all  the  rites  and  sacraments  of  the  Church. 
Baptism  was  initiation  into  the  fellowship.  The 
Holy  Communion  was  the  bond  of  the  fellowship. 
There  is  nothing  that  has  such  power  for  unifica¬ 
tion  as  a  common  ideal.  Let  two  Single  Taxers, 
or  Socialists,  who  are  strangers  to  each  other, 
meet,  and  instantly  they  cleave  to  each  other  soul 
to  soul.  They  coalesce  like  two  elements  that 
have  chemical  affinity  for  each  other.  Think 
then,  of  the  power  of  the  fellowship  of  the  mys¬ 
tery  among  the  early  Christians,  the  communion 
of  the  Holy  Ghost.  It  was,  as  St.  Paul  says, 
“the  unity  of  the  Spirit  in  the  bond  of  peace. 
There  is  one  body  and  one  Spirit,  even  as  ye  are 
called  in  one  hope  of  your  calling,  one  Lord,  one 
faith,  one  baptism,  one  God  and  Father  of  all 
who  is  above  all  and  through  all  and  in  you  all.” 
The  new  Fellowship  of  the  Mystery,  that  Com¬ 
munion  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  bom  at  Pentecost, 


FELLOWSHIP  OF  THE  MYSTERY 


209 

wrought  miracles  in  the  day  of  its  early  power. 

It  bridged  impassable  gulfs. 

It  bridged  the  chasms  of  divergent  races  and 
nationalities.  That  ancient  world  was  divided 
everywhere  with  a  dichotomy  which  was  thought 
to  be  irreconcilable.  It  was  taken  for  granted. 
Did  it  not  exist  and  inhere  in  the  very  nature  of 
things?  To  the  Roman  all  the  world  was  sepa¬ 
rated  into  citizens  and  enemies;  to  the  Greek 
into  Greeks  and  barbarians;  and  to  the  Hebrew 
into  Jews  and  dogs  of  Gentiles ;  and  generally  not 
as  much  kinship  was  felt  between  them  as  is  now 
felt  between  man  and  the  lower  animals. 

But  in  the  new  fellowship,  men  of  all  races  and 
nationalities  were  initiated  by  one  baptism,  gath¬ 
ered  about  one  Lord’s  Table,  shared  a  common 
faith  and  hope,  served  one  Lord  and  owned  one 
Father.  Differences  of  nationality  and  race  were 
fused  and  melted  by  the  fire  of  the  mystery  and 
the  Spirit  into  a  common  brotherhood,  and  St. 
Paul  could  sing,  “There  is  no  longer  Greek  nor 
Jew,  circumcision  nor  uncircumcision,  barbarian, 
Scythian,  bond  nor  free,  but  Christ  is  all  and  in 
all.”  Or,  again,  “For  by  the  Spirit  were  we  all 
baptised  into  one  body,  whether  we  be  Jews 
or  Gentiles,  bond  or  free,  and  were  all  made  to 
drink  of  one  Spirit.”  The  very  sacraments  be¬ 
came  the  bonds  of  inter-racial  unity  in  the  one 
Spirit. 


210 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


The  fellowship  bridged  the  impassable  gulf  of 
sex  distinction.  Woman  in  the  ancient  world 
was  a  thing — the  chattel  of  man,  the  instrument 
of  his  pleasure  or  his  service.  But  in  Christ 
there  was  “neither  male  nor  female.”  They  were 
members  of  one  body,  equal  co-partners  in  all  the 
spiritual  values,  interests  and  service  of  the  fel¬ 
lowship.  To  that  Christian  doctrine  alone  woman 
owes  her  modern  emancipation  and  acquisition  of 
equality — aye,  of  personality  itself; — though  the 
new  woman  of  to-day  is  sometimes  too  advanced 
for  the  old  religion. 

The  fellowship  bridged  the  impassable  gulf  of 
class.  Slaves,  like  women,  were  chattels,  de¬ 
void  of  personality,  even  humanity, — tools,  to  be 
used  or  destroyed  at  will.  For  the  power  of  life 
and  death  was  absolute  in  the  hands  of  the  owner 
and  master.  But  while  the  new  fellowship  did 
not  directly  or  politically  attack  the  institution  of 
slavery,  it  sapped  it  of  its  meaning  and  reason 
for  existence  so  that  slavery  has  finally  crumbled 
wherever  the  new  fellowship  has  gone.  The 
first  emancipation  proclamation  was  St.  Paul’s 
letter  to  Philemon.  The  apostle  indeed  sent 
back  the  runaway  slave  to  his  master,  but  with  a 
message  that  utterly  abrogated  the  old  relation 
of  owner  and  chattel,  master  and  slave.  “Re¬ 
ceive  him,  my  son  whom  I  have  begotten  in  my 
bonds — my  very  heart — not  now  as  a  servant,  a 
slave,  but  above  a  servant,  a  brother  beloved,  spe- 


FELLOWSHIP  OF  THE  MYSTERY 


2 II 


dally  to  me,  but  much  more  unto  thee — both  in  the 
flesh  (the  brotherhood  of  a  common  humanity) 
and  in  the  Lord  (the  fellowship  of  the  mystery 
of  the  Spirit).”  Slavery  could  not  exist  forever 
in  such  an  atmosphere. 

The  new  fellowship  begot  an  enthusiasm  of 
sacrifice,  of  service  and  brotherhood  such  as  the 
world  had  never  seen  before,  and,  alas,  has  never 
seen  since.  It  even  tried  out  the  first  experiment 
in  communism.  “All  that  believed  were  together 
and  had  all  things  common  and  sold  their  pos¬ 
sessions  and  goods  and  parted  them  to  all  as  every 
man  had  need.”  It  was  the  very  central  principle 
of  communism.  “From  each  according  to  his 
ability,  to  each  according  to  his  need.” 

The  grave  economists  point  out  that  this  ex¬ 
periment  was  ill-advised  and  ended  in  disaster. 
Undoubtedly  so.  I  am  not  advocating  com¬ 
munism.  But  sometimes  I  would  to  God  that 
the  modern  Church  had  enough  of  that  ancient 
enthusiasm  of  brotherhood  to  do  something 
rashly  imprudent,  to  make  some  economical  mis¬ 
take,  to  compass  something  splendidly  foolish, 
magnificently  unwise  and  heroically  self-sacrific¬ 
ing. 

The  fellowship  turned  the  scattered  flock  of 
Christ  the  world  over  into  one  family.  Any 
Christian  setting  out  on  his  travels  anywhere 
took  with  him  a  letter  from  his  home  group,  and 
that  assured  him  of  welcome  and  hospitality 


212 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  FELLOWSHIP 


wherever  a  Christian  could  be  found.  He  was 
given  support  until  he  could  establish  his  own 
self-support.  Two  men,  strangers  to  each  other, 
stood  upon  the  beach.  One  carelessly  drew  with 
his  staff  a  figure  of  a  fish  upon  the  sand.  It  was 
the  mystic  sign  and  symbol  of  the  fellowship. 
Instantly  he  was  taken  to  the  other’s  heart  and 
home.  Where  is  that  spirit  of  brotherhood  to¬ 
day?  It  has  been  chilled  out  of  the  Church  and 
has  taken  refuge  in  freemasonry  and  other  fra¬ 
ternal  orders. 

This,  then,  is  the  message  I  have  for  you  to¬ 
day.  The  essence,  the  spirit,  the  soul  of  our  re¬ 
ligion  is  manifested  in  fellowship,  “the  fellow¬ 
ship  of  the  mystery,”  “the  fellowship  of  the 
spirit,”  “the  communion  of  the  Holy  Ghost,” 
“the  communion  of  the  saints.”  That  is  the 
characteristic  note  and  the  constitutive  principle 
of  Christianity  and  the  Church  in  their  origin. 
It  is  also  the  acid  test  of  Christianity  and  the 
Church  to-day.  It  is  the  article  of  a  standing 
or  a  falling  Church — aye,  of  our  very  religion. 
Fellowship  alone  can  save  the  world,  fellowship 
between  classes  in  industry,  in  the  divided  body 
of  Christ,  between  races  and  nations  in  the  one 
great  human  family. 

And  fellowship  can  be  realised  on  the  spiritual 
plane  alone.  It  can  spring  from  but  one  source, 
the  fellowship  of  the  mystery,  the  love  of  God, 
revealed  in  the  grace  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ 


FELLOWSHIP  OF  THE  MYSTERY  213 

and  ultimating  in  the  communion  of  the  Holy 
Ghost. 

If  the  Church  can  be  awakened  to  the  con¬ 
sciousness  that  she  is  in  essence  and  by  her  very 
charter  such  a  fellowship,  if  she  can  heal  her 
own  breaches  and  quicken  her  own  deadness  in 
the  power  and  vitality  of  that  conviction,  and  if 
through  every  opportunity  that  opens  she  can 
spread  the  spirit  and  contagion  of  her  own  fel¬ 
lowship  throughout  this  fatally  divided  and  hate- 
poisoned  world  about  her,  then,  and  then  only — 
but  then  indeed — she  can  fulfil  the  whole  mission 
laid  upon  her,  the  mission  of  the  Christ  Himself, 
to  disciple  the  nations  and  save  the  world. 


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Parallel  Passages.  788  pages.  8vo.  Cloth.  $3.00. 

“Bible  students  who  desire  to  compare  Scripture  with 
Scripture  will  find  the  ‘Treasury’  to  be  a  better  help  than 
any  other  book  of  which  I  have  any  knowledge."— -j5L  JE. 
McBurney,  Former  Gen.  Sec.,  Y.  M.  €.  A.,  New  York. 

4.  R.  BUCK  LAND,  Editor 

Universal  Bible  Dictionary 

51 1  pages.  8vo.  Cloth.  $3.00. 

TPr.  CmrG>beU  Morgan  says:  “Clear,  concise,  compre- 
hetjaive.  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  if  any  student 
would  take  the  Bible,  and  go  through  it  book  by  book  with 
its  aid*  the  gain  would  he  enormous.’*1 


BIBLE  STUDY 

f>.  WH1TWELL  WILSON  Author  of  Ms  Christ 

— Wf  Fdrgtt"  ’  ^'  * 

The  Church.  We  Forget 

A  Study  of  the  Life  and  Words  of  the  Early 
Christians.  8vo,  cloth,  net 

The  author  of  “The  Christ  We  Forget”  here  furnishes 
a  companion-picture  of  the  earliest  Christian  Church — of 
the  men  and  women,  of  like  feelings  with  ourselves,  who 
followed  Christ  and  fought  His  battles  in  the  Roman 
world  of  their  day.  “Here  again,”  says  Mr.  Wilson,  “my 
paint-box  is  the  Bible,  and  nothing  else — and  my  canvas 
is  a  page  which  he  who  runs  may  read.” 

C.  ALPHONSO  SMITH ,  Ph.D LL.D. 

Head  of  the  Department  of  English  in  the  U.  S.  Naval 
Academy ,  Annapolis ,  Md. 

Key-note  Studies  in  Key-note  Books 
of  the  Bible  i2mo,  cloth,  net 

The  sacred  books  dealt  with  are  Genesis,  Esther,  T@b, 
Hosea,  John’s  Gospel,  Romans,  Philippian3.  Revelation. 
“No  series  of  lectures  yet  given  on  this  famous  founda¬ 
tion  have  been  more  interesting  and  stimulating  than  these 
illuminating  studies  of  scriptural  books  by  a  layman  and 
library  expert.” — Christian  Observer. 

GEORGE  D.  WATSON ,  D.  D. 

God’s  Firdt  Words 

Studies  in  Genesis,  Historic,  Prophetic  and  Ex¬ 
perimental.  i2mo,  cloth,  net 

Dr.  Watson  shows  how  God’s  purposes  and  infinite 
wisdom,  His  plan  and  purpose  for  the  race,  His  unfailing 
love  and  faithfulness  are  first  unfolded  in  the  Book  of 
Genesis,  to  remain  unchanged  through  the  whole  canon  of 
Scripture.  Dr.  Watson’s  new  work  will  furnish  unusual 
enlightment  to  every  gleaner  in  religious  fields,  who  will 
find  “God’s  First  Words”  to  possess  great  value  and  profit. 

EVERETT  PEPPERRELL  WHEELER ,  A.M. 

Author  of  "Sixty  Years  of  American  Life,"  ate. 

A  Lawyer’s  Study  of  the  Bible 

Its  Answer  to  the  Questions  of  To-day.  i2mo, 
cloth,  net 

Mr.  Wheeler’s  main  proposition  is  that  the  Bible,  when 
wisely  studied,  rightly  understood  and  its  counsel  closely 
followed,  is  found  to  be  of  inestimable  value  as  a  guide  to 
daily  life  and  conduct.  To  this  end  Mr.  Wheeler  ex¬ 
amines  its  teachings  as  they  relate  to  sociology,  labor  and 
capital,  socialism,  war,  fatalism,  prayer,  immortality.  \ 
lucid,  helpful  book. 


EVANGELISTIC  WORK 


OZORA  H.  DAVIS ,  D.D. 

President  Chicago  Theological  Seminar 

Preaching  the  Social  Gospel 

$1.50. 

The  new  book  by  the  author  of  “Evangelistic  Preach 
ing”  is  the  next  book  every  preacher  should  read.  As  a 
high  authority  recently  said  “Every  preacher  needs  _  to 
read  books  on  preaching  and  the  problems  of  preaching 
and  should  read  one  such  book  every  year.”  It  would  be 
difficult  to  find  a  book  that  fits  this  need  better  than  this 
latest  work  of  President  Davis’. 

J.  WILBUR  CHAPMAN ,  D.D. 

Evangelistic  Sermons 

Edited  and  Compiled  by  Edgar  Whitaker 
Work,  D.D.,  with  Frontispiece.  $1.50. 

Strong,  fervid  gospel  addresses,  eminently  character, 
istic  of  one  of  the  great  evangelists  of  his  time.  Dr. 
Work  has  used  his  editorial  prerogatives  with  pronounced 
skill.  As  a  result  every  paragraph  is  reminiscent  of 
Dr.  Chapman,  and  from  every  page  of  the  book  one 
seems  to  hear  again  the  voice  and  compelling  message 
of  one  who  while  living  preached  to  possibly  as  many 
people  as  any  man  of  his  generation,  who  “being  dead 
yet  speaketh.” 

LOUIS  ALBERT  BANKS ,  D.  D. 

Author  of'1  Thirty-one  Revival  Sermons'* 

The  New  Ten  Commandments 

and  Other  Sermons.  $1.50. 

Strong,  stirring  Gospel  addresses  reflecting  the  true 
evangelical  note,  Dr.  Banks’  latest  volume,  fully  main¬ 
tains  his  impressive,  picturesque  style  of  presentation. 
Apt  quotation,  fitting  illustration,  drawn  from  literature 
and  human  life  give  point  and  color  to  his  work,  which 
is  without  a  dull  or  meaningless  page. 

FRANK  CHALMERS  McKEAN,  A.M.,  D.D. 

The  Magnetism  of  Mystery 

and  Other  Sermons 

Introduction  by  J.  A.  Marquis,  D.D.  $1.25 

Dr.  John  A.  Marquis  says:  “Dr.  McKean’s  sermons  are 
shafts  with  points,  and  he  hurls  them  with  vigor  and  sure¬ 
ness.  They  will  be  read  with  interest,  not  only  for  what 
they  are  in  themselves,  but  as  types  of  the  pulpit  ministry 
that  is  making  the  Church  of  the  Middle  West.” 


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